Rumblings in DC!

Today we experienced an earthquake in DC. It was crazy! It measured 5.9 and was by far the biggest quake we've been in.

We had a very small tremor here last summer and have been in a small earthquake before in Italy and who can forget the famous Birmingham earthquake of 2008! All of those experiences were in the middle of the night and although they woke us up we'd not felt any shaking.

Today was completely different. I was sat at my desk this afternoon when the floor started vibrating. At first I thought it was the industrial shredder or generator starting up in the basement under my office but then the vibrating turned into more of a shake and my desk started to move from side to side.

Chris's office is a couple of floors above mine and they felt the impact more than me, he could see the door frame move to the side and things fell of the shelves. It probably went on for about 30 seconds and I just sat frozen in my chair the whole time! I'm glad it wasn't any stronger because I don't think the Embassy building was built to survive earthquakes, there was lots of creaking!

The only building that was damaged in the city was Washington Cathedral. We drive past it on the way home from work and I could see that part of one of the spires had fallen down. There was a complete over reaction to it all though and the traffic was awful with everyone panicking and leaving work early.

And as if an earthquake isn't enough drama for one week, there are reports that Hurricane Irene could hit the east coast this weekend!