The California Earthquake

Imagine: you’re in your house, doing homework, when the ground suddenly jerks beneath your feet. With a second pitch your chair lerchs, chucking you into the air. You hit the ground hard then crawl underneath the table grabbing hold of the legs as ground continues to jerk. What you just experienced was an earthquake. There is often no warning and extensive damage. In 2005 my grandma, who lives in California, was in her apartment when one occurred. Though no serious damage where she lived, however roads cracked, and buildings collapsed and people were trapped nearer to the cause of the earthquake. This is not unusual, but still my grandma was lucky; now without further ado, the story of the earthquake. Nothing had seemed unusual before one …show more content…
Then of Shatz, where was she? I had lost sight of her when the dizziness hit she was nowhere to be seen. Too late to grab her now. Finally my instinct kicked in and I started mentally going through the earthquake safety procedures I knew. Following one, I stumbled toward a doorway and held on for dear life. Glass shattered and tumbled to the ground in the kitchen, cups and bowls cascaded from the cabinets; practically anything that wasn’t chained to the floor or screwed to the walls was torn from its original place. Absolute terror began to take over, and I began to panic. What if the ceiling collapses? Are the walls going to start cracking? What if the ground opens up and swallows me whole like in the movies!!!!!!! Then it was over. The ground gradually stopped trembling. Furniture abruptly stopped shifting. Objects promptly stopped tumbling off the walls. Everything became completely and utterly …show more content…
Once I gathered myself I stumbled from the doorway I had been clinging to and started searching for Shatz. What if something had fallen on her or hit her causing my poor little dog to get badly injured……or worse? No. I couldn’t bare that thought. As I searched the kitchen I found no dog, but saw no serious damage and little rubble. Only glass from the windows and cupboards coated the floor with the occasional paper towel dispenser or picture sprinkled on top. Next I combed through the living room searching for Shatz; the damage was about the same, however due to the shaking all the furniture was either way out of place or completely flipped over or both. As I treaded carefully on the thin layer of broken glass, I finally found her next to the flipped-over-out-of-place couch, slightly shaken, but seemingly uninjured. I breathed a sigh of relief; Shatz was ok, that was a start. What about the other dog? He was outside when the earthquake occurred, what if something had happened to him? Now I needed to go out and find him. I walked over to the window, or, since the glass was missing, the hole in the wall. The severity of the damage was far less extensive than I had anticipated, in fact, only a few trees lay sprawled across the road and parking lots while several stray car alarms went off. No power lines had fallen, the road had hardly cracked at all. I had been very lucky. We