this is a post where every paragraph begins with "so". but it's about the earthquake.

So here's the thing. While the earthquake wasn't frightening to me personally, I am quite capable of recognizing that this was because (a) (mainly) I was busy being baffled almost until it was over and (b) I work in a one-story building that is designed to be Quite Sturdy in ways I shouldn't say much more about. But the fact remains that here in Washington - on the east coast in general, in fact - we don't have learned instincts about this sort of thing. You know what I mean. I grew up in the midwest, so I know what to do when the sky turns yellowy-green and how to drive in snow. But until people started talking about it in December 2004, for example, I'd have had no idea what to do if I were in a coastal area and saw all the water rush away from the shore. I had to read someone talking about how the right answer was to run like hell for higher ground; without that I'm pretty sure it would never have occurred to me that the water would all come back in a big damn hurry.

So it's not just that our building codes don't much bother to include earthquakes (or, this far north, probably hurricanes either) - which changes the learned reactions, by the way, doesn't it?, because I believe bracing yourself in a doorframe is the right answer in a lot of places and rushing out of the building is the wrong one, but a lot of buildings were evacuated on purpose today and not just emptied by people panicking and fleeing into the streets.

So right. It's not just that. It's that absent what we may have picked up from here and there (including having lived elsewhere), a lot of us around here don't actually automatically know what to do when stuff starts shaking. Or, you know, to the extent that we do, our first thought is not going to be that it's an earthquake. Friend of mine was working a couple of blocks from the White House today and mentioned that he's never been so glad to hear something was "just" a medium-to-severe earthquake in his life.