Well now, that was a surprising way to wake up at 5:40 a.m. in Louisville, KY: we had an earthquake! I felt lots of these in California, and I vastly preferred the ones that happened when I was lying in bed to the ones that happened when I was standing up somewhere. Whenever I did feel one, my native Californian friends taught me the appropriate response: wait for aftershocks and/or to see if “the big one” is coming next.
Here in Louisville, my thoughts ran in a different direction: “Is St. Louis still standing?” From what I knew, the only earthquake to feel in the Ohio Valley would be from the New Madrid fault, one that does not let off steam very often and promises to trash St. Louis and Memphis when it next moves. To put the situation into perspective, please note that were the New Madrid fault a pregnant lady and a quake labor, well, she’d be about 15 months pregnant now.
But what do I know? This one was based near New Harmony, Indiana. No major injuries reported. So more of a novelty than anything else.