I felt my first earthquake this afternoon. Apparently there was a 5.8/5.9 quake down in Virginia (about six hours away) and we felt it here in Central Pennsylvania sometime before 2 p.m. (around 1:50 p.m.). It was kind of odd to see everything move. It's just not something you expect in State College. A life-time Pennsylvania resident that works with Richard doesn't ever recall an earthquake here.
Apparently the quake spurred some fires in Bellefonte. We were both in State College today, so we figured if our house was included in the fires we were at least up-to-date on our house insurance. :) But I'm sure our house is fine, we don't live in the older part of Bellefonte where I can definitely foresee some fire issues. I just hope all of our food storage (mostly Richard's canning) is on the shelf and it didn't fall over. Our shelf isn't secured to a wall.
Another odd thing happened on Sunday. A big rainstorm came in during church--okay, so that's not odd, it rains all the time making everything green and lush. The room we were in has a big glass wall. The lightning and thunder that came with the storm were right on top of our building and delivered some serious rain. During the storm, which lasted the whole R.S. lesson, it was hard to hear the teacher, and I was on the second row. In fact, the rain was so heavy that at one point it was raining horizontally instead of vertically. At another point there was so much rain coming off one portion of the roof it looked like a waterfall. I wondered if a tornado could be coming, so I was careful to watch what was happening outside, while of course listening to the lesson. During this time I also figured out an evacuation plan for the women, just on case I noticed anything too hairy outside (not that I could really see farther than half of a football field) or feel things shake. But I was comforted because I figured out a plan of action. Well, the storm passed and cleared up within a half hour after church. By that evening it was sunny and beautiful again. Then I heard that there was actually a tornado warning in State College earlier that afternoon. Huh, we don't really get tornados in Central Pennsylvania--too many mountains, or at least that what the locals call them. Good thing I came up with an evacuation plan, just on case. :)
We had a thunder storm on Friday that rumbled through the sky for almost an entire hour and a half before it started dropping rain. I've never seen--I mean heard--anything like that either.
