5.4 Earthquake is Better Than a Hurricane!

Yesterday at 11:40 I sat down in the comfortable dentist's chair for my yearly routine exam. As my dentist said open wide, the earth started moving... then rolling... then BOOM! A violent Secondary Wave (or S Wave) shook the building and the entire second story back and forth, well it was more like up and down. My dentist, g-d bless his heart, yanked me out of the chair - because it's hard to get out of those things when you're reclined back. The lamp above was swinging back and forth violently, kind of like a weighted seismograph pen! We ran into the hallway where other employees were freaking out. I told everyone not to worry... "I am a geologist!" For some reason it seemed to calm them all down... LOL! They asked me what I thought and I told them that it was a magnitude over 5, but under 5.5 and under 50 miles away. I have been in A LOT of earthquakes and I've even worked for the USGS at CalTech with Lucy Jones and Tom Heaton one summer... so I know! After the dentist finished my aftershocky exam, I got in my car and headed over to pick Shayna up from school. The phones weren't working so I turned on the radio to hear that the EQ was a mag 5.4 centered in Chino Hills (~29 miles)... I was right!!! I bet those people in my dentist's office think I'm brilliant now. I should get free cleanings and check-ups for a year!

(as a side note, we had picture frames fall and shampoo bottles fall in the shower... also on our east-west wall, the pictures on the wall are both tilted the same way... I guess I should post a picture of that)This is what I put next to my bed last night!
I also wore clothes to bed...because I don't want to go running out
of the house naked!!!!