For some, a shakey start to the morning
You can take the girl out of California, but you can’t take California out of the girl. As I walked up the hill after mailing some packages yesterday, I noticed how weird the weather felt. That, had it been a little warmer, I might have taken it for earthquake weather. Yes, I know scientifically there’s not a connection between when an earthquake is going to happen and the weather, but sure enough, the people of Kent experienced an earthquake this morning. I came downstairs after my shower and the breaking news on BBC breakfast TV was the “tremor in Kent”. I ran upstairs to see if Crunchy husband had felt it (I didn’t), and he said he thought he felt something a bit earlier.
It was interesting to see the difference between media coverage here after an earthquake and that after one in California. The newscasters appeared confused, a little befuddled that this could’ve happened here. I know it was not even an hour after it happened, but I found it interesting that their coverage was based solely on people calling in to describe what they experienced, that there wasn’t a scientific component to their broadcast. (Maybe seismologists are hard to come by in England at 8:45 on a Saturday morning.) They didn’t even have a magnitude to report. This made it difficult for me to tell whether it was as bad as people made it sound or if, since they had never experienced an earthquake, they were just a little shaken. (”I thought the house was coming down and I ran out in the garden!” Um, no. Not really what you should do. “All the neighbors are gathered in the street in their dressing gowns.” Duck and cover isn’t a part of the elementary school curriculum here.) The broadcast finally showed a seismogram that an amateur seismologist sent in. It was apparent the newsreaders weren’t prepared to explain it because all they did was show it. It was small, so not really all that useful to those of us at home without super grande plasma tvs. (That’s when I checked the USGS website. They listed it at 4.7.)
The coverage amused me, but it’s not really the broadcasters’ fault. You could tell they just weren’t prepared to cover something like this happening locally. It is not unheard of, but it doesn’t happen very often. Tonight, they seem to be a bit back on par: reporters standing next to piles of brick and a line of chimney stacks removed from damaged houses, filming inside where plaster dust and soot covered floors and furniture, reporting from Folkestone which seemed to bear the brunt of it.
Wednesday, 27th February 2008 at 8:36
[...] to have to stop erecting buildings out of bricks. We had another earthquake last night. Unlike the last one, I didn’t see it coming. But, it was pretty strong. The epicenter (5.2 on the Richter scale) [...]