h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm heading off to work in a few- it's about 5:20am. I work on the 27th floor of a high-rise. Around an hour and a half ago we had an earthquake here- just a little 4.3 sucker, but enough to make me feel a bit squirrelly about being so far off the ground...

Oh 'eck!

Oh, it was just a little itty bitty one, and it didn't even wake me up, mind. It's just the principle, you know?

When I got to the office this morning, the overnight security guard hadn't noticed anything and only knew of it because it was on news radio. So it's safe to assume the structural integrity of my office building is in fact intact.

But that won't stop me being annoyed that I still haven't gotten around to updating the emergency evacuation team list with current employees. Though I expect that in the event of a true emergency, evacuation team be damned and we'll see who can run the fastest.

! s and children first... Gangway!

And anyone who gets in the way winds up with boot-shaped marks on their backs.

Might be worth trying the surfboard

Hells yeah! Why didn't I think of that.

Coz I is The Wise One

True, 'dat. We can always count on you to get us out of any sticky situation in the quickest, easiest way possible... with the fewest casualties.

Honestly, I have a big project today and tomorrow and I'd as soon they did evacuate us, so I could put it off a while.

I could push that big red button on the wall

Oh, if only!!

I take it your Famous Last Words will be the same as my Famous Last Words. "I'll push the button and find out!"

*giggles*

Summat like that

Oh look, I'm late with the news again. Damned timezones.

Earthquakes are best when they're not noticeable. I've slept through a couple of minor ones, which is fine by me.

I had a couple of classic ones:

1) On a narrowboat near Birmingham, UK; we were bonking & i said "Wow, the earth moved!"

2) In Pakistan, in a lift in a half-built 5 storey department store....obviously the lift plummeted to the bottom in the dark; i just crouched on the floor; damage limitation strategy; i was fine.

Oh yes, several others in Malawi; but only itty bitty ones.

R.I.P the Haitan victims

zdt

We had a few of varying strengths in California. I slept through most of them. (Though I remember we all had to keep a jar of peanut butter, a bottle of water, and a change of clothes in the classroom just in case.)

Then there was a teeny-tiny one in Oregon. The local newspaper reported the "damage" the next day: "Two yoghurts fell off the shelf at the supermarket, one vanilla, one strawberry!"

We had a 'jolt' on the Wirral in the 1980s.

It felt like someone bumping the end of the bed and hitting the wardrobe. It took a while to find out what it was.

The 'quake had hit just off the coast of Anglesey, North Wales and registered 5.3, for weeks later we could feel 'rumblings' vibrating through the floor of the house.

I remember that one lil - I was about 5 or 6 at the time. We were sat on the floor in class reading when the floor started to move.

Had a couple of minor ones in Manchester and Bradford that caused books to fall off shelves and wake me up.

>The local newspaper reported the "damage" the next day: "Two yoghurts fell off the shelf at the supermarket, one vanilla, one strawberry!"<



That's brilliant.

I honestly can't remember ever noticing one, I'll have to look up that one from 20 years ago and see if I was likely to have been awake at the time. While loud noises, or someone turning on a light, will usually wake me up, I've been known to sleep through really high winds and bad storms. That wicked tornado we had last summer woke me up long before the power went out, but I've slept through tornado sirens in the past.

This was the same newspaper that wrote an article saying "Someone has been vandalising mailboxes. If you know who's doing it, please contact the sheriff. If you're the one doing it, please stop!"

Did it work?