Wednesday, June 23, 2010

I give it a 5.0 out of 10

So. By now, maybe you've heard the news...

Earthquake!

At 1:41 pm EST, I was sitting at my desk at work, and suddenly everything started shaking. At first, it was a little rumble, not unusual on our street where large over-sized buses and trucks go past, and we're only on the 5th floor...but this was unusual because it got stronger and kept going. I watched my monitor swaying, and waited for it to stop before getting up and going to the window in time to see the windows of the building across the street still shaking.

My coworkers and I were surprised...an earthquake in Ottawa? Really? Some people were worried, thinking a bomb had gone off somewhere (not out of the realm of possibility...we work just a few blocks from Parliament Hill, and the G8/G20 summit is being hosted up the highway from us in Toronto). Instantly, a coworker was on the phone home, and he found out they felt it out there too, far from the downtown core, so we ruled out bombing, and ruled in the earthquake.

Bemused, my coworkers briefly wondered what to do..."Should we leave?" And it was decided that yes, yes we should. So we did, because we didn't know if there would be aftershocks. And we went down to the street to wait for further direction. With no emergency/safety warden on our floor yet (our branch has only just moved into the building recently), we weren't sure what to expect. Everyone was texting or trying to call family and friends...I was trying to reach a couple of people myself, but the cellular networks were overloaded, and it took forever to send a message, never mind make a call. Oddly enough, I had no problems at all getting facebook on my blackberry, and I updated my status and checked out a few more, where I learned that the earthquake was felt in Toronto, New York and Ohio. Not bad!

As we stood there on the side of the Transitway, we watched buses rumbled past us, filled to the ceiling with people, and we laughed at the exodus away from the downtown core.

After a while, a floor warden from another floor told us it was okay to go back in, so we did. And then I found out that many of the government offices just sent staff home after evacuating...so why did we have to go back??

Oh well. I volunteered to be on the safety committee after it was suggested by a manager in my group. It appears that it takes more than a 5.0 magnitude earthquake to rattle my nerves :)

PS - the cats are obviously spooked, but they are fine. There are a few things on the floor, and a few more precariously perched on ledges and shelves, but otherwise, all is well in the Poitras Palace.

1 Comments:

At 6:26 AM, Blogger Gail at Large said...

When I worked for the provincial Ministry of the Attorney General, I remember an alarm and evacuation where people just didn't go back to work later!

Ugh, we had SO MANY meetings and committees about emergencies while I was at MAG. I wasn't here during SARS, but that was what sparked it all.

 

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