GREATEST fear

View from my beach towel....Ahhhhh!

My greatest fear came true October 2006

We were in Kona Hawaii with some GREAT friends. We woke up to a 7.6 magnitude earthquake. I've never been so scared in my WHOLE life. I've always been a worrier and earthquakes have been a BIG worry. Even way back in grade 3 I remember the talk about the "BIG ONE" that was coming soon. SCCARRREEYYY!!

So, when I felt the horrible shaking/jerking/can't get stable on my legs I was terrified. I ran out of the room like a chicken with its head cut off. Literally twisting around in circles saying "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh" I didnt' know what to do? Clearly I'm one of those "flight" people when it comes down to fight or flight..bahahah!!. All these "what to do" scenarios played through my head. Our kitchen table was glass...bahahha!!

So, Ryan grabbed me as I was now almost hyperventilating and we huddled in the door jam and prayed like we've never prayed before. I was a long earthquake a good 2-3 minutes of violent shaking. We were in a condo on the 4th floor ONE BLOCK from the ocean.

Needless to say after the shaking all we could hear were people on the balcony screaming about a tsunami. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I could almost barf now thinking about it. What do we do? where do we go? All the power went out, phone lines, tv...everything! We didn't get the details of the size of the quake till almost a day after.

There was no tsunami....everyone calmed down and we at the time just thought "It wasn't REALLY that big of a quake" "it didn't shake that bad?" So guess what we did one hour after the quake?? Guess?

Went to the BEACH!!!!!!!!!!!! Bahahhahahhahha!! We were on holidays...why not? It wasn't a very big quake (until we found out) so MEH, we'll be fine. There were boulders on the road, cracks on the road. Meh, we'll be fine?  

A few hours after the quake...ON A CLIFF?

One of the only pics of debris we got. The camera battery died.
The man is picking up the boulders and sweeping up debris with his broom?...bahha!

We were the only ones at a popular beach...MMm...that's weird?..bahha!! There were cracks all along the sand....cool....GAH!! *roll eyes*...bahhah! The waves were INSANELY big..."Oh lets go boogie board"..sheesh.. Then after a few hours we decided to travel the WHOLE Island and the volcano. Roads were closed, no radio and we still kept on going. Not thinking anything was wrong.

Till we got back.

It was all over CNN......all we could do was watch because we had NO idea how big this quake was and the damage it caused. Good thing we didn't go down the closed roads..bahhah!!

The next day we were finally able to contact our families who were SICK! We were ok and now laughing at our stupidity....dumb...so dumb.

So as soon as we got home I researched earthquake kits and got 100% prepared for 72hours without help. We talked and made a plan for in case we are separated during the quake. Which will be most likely as Ry's working the most and I"m with the kids. I've got to be READY. No running around like a chicken with my head cut off. I've got to be the brave one...GAH!! Its still SO scarey to me BUT at least I know that we are ready to rock if it does hit.

The most ironic part of the story is I had NO IDEA I was 6 weeks pregnant with Sophie at the time ;) Thank the Lord we stayed safe in our stupidness...lol...

All this just to say...PLEASE take the few hours to get ready! I know your all saying "AH, I'll do it later"? because that was me...bahahha!! You'll feel so much better knowing its done. Its not a situation where you have time to grab stuff LET alone think....GET READY! I think now that I have kids I'll be the "Fight" scenario woman....eeeps..I hope ;)

Have a great earthquake free day
LOVE LOVE
Jen