Shaken To The Core – Literally

It was 7:09am when the entire house began shaking…and I mean SHAKING! I’d only fallen asleep three hours before that but I went from totally asleep to 100% awake in less than a second! Both my husband and I shot up in our bed and my husband yelled out, “THAT’S AN EARTHQUAKE!!!”  It felt like everything shook for the longest time (although it was probably only 20 seconds or so…but the longest 20 seconds  ever…) and the sound of the world shaking was terrifying.  We were experiencing a 5.7 earthquake, one of the biggest in Utah’s history.  The epicenter of the quake was only 20 miles from our home and the quake was felt as far as Logan, Utah, which is over two hours drive away.  It was nuts!!!

The quake knocked out power to more than 55,000 people.  The airport had to be completely shut down due to a waterline break that resulted from the quake and all incoming flights had to be diverted in air and the entire airport had to be evacuated.  The world famous Salt Lake Temple located downtown even sustained damage and the trumpet off the Angel Moroni statue perched at the top the Temple’s spire broke off and fell during the quake. 

Immediately after the first quake my children and I got on a call and agreed they would jump in their cars and get right to our house so we could all be together. My daughter Ashley texted all of us a few minutes later to say she was getting McDonalds breakfast on her way to our house because if it would be our last meal she felt it would be fitting that for our family it should be McDonald’s (…don’t judge…we love it!).

We stayed together at our home the rest of the day experiencing aftershock after aftershock (90 total aftershocks!!). They just kept coming with the largest aftershock quakes being a 4.5 that occurred at 8:02am and a 4.6 earthquake that occurred at 1:12pm.

I’m not going to lie – it’s been a bit terrifying…  When the earthquake hits – your fight or flight instinct kicks in but you know you can’t fight it, and you realize taking flight won’t make it stop – the best way I can describe the feeling is that its similar to that feeling you get in your stomach when you step off a ledge without realizing and you get that falling feeling of terror for a second – it’s just like that.  And the worst part is that even after the quake stopped the feeling didn’t go away because you find yourself bracing on edge all day waiting for the next quake to hit…it’s a most unsettling feeling… I wonder how many days it’s gonna take for the uneasy feeling to go away where I’m not bracing for the next quake to hit…hopefully not many…

I’ve done pretty good to keep myself focused on the positive during this Coronavirus Pandemic, the stock market crash, and this period of lockdown, but when this earthquake hit today I was like “COME ON ALREADY!!!!!!! What’s next??? Our pet’s heads falling off???!!!”  But then I reminded myself that getting negative won’t help anything…that’s when I decided to end our day by ordering “Shake Shack” burgers (emphasis on the word“Shake”) for dinner tonight in honor of today’s earthquakes…

~Amy Rees Anderson (author of the book “What Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel in Business & Life” )

2 Comments

  • Jane says:

    WOW! I have heard nothing about your earthquake. You’re right though. That’s unsettling! Praying! God is in control of it all.

  • Sadia Hayden says:

    Sending peace and prayers! We all have to stay positive in this tough time. God is truly in control. Thank you for sharing, you definitely help me ease my mind.

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