Another week, another earthquake out our way it seems – and it wasn’t caused by Don Cherry’s suit Saturday night (or his ridiculousness equating weather with climate on Coach’s Cuckaloo Corner). A 3.2 magnitude (intially reported to be 2.8, but later upgraded) quake hit a place called Friday Harbor, which is just as idyllic and sweet as its name implies (although it does sound a bit like a saloon) just before 11 on Saturday night.
 
We had turned off the TV, having watched the east coast feed of Saturday Night Live (which may never be better this season than last weekend’s Will Ferrell outing). After a fun night at my aunt and uncle’s enjoying some seafood chowder and a lot of laughter, we had come home to a happy pup, some comedy on the PVR and then…BOOM.
 
The TV was off and we were both standing, but we felt none of what others around our part of the island did. We simply heard the boom: something like a transformer blowing. (Rob thought he heard two thumps.) I looked towards Victoria International Airport, of which our house has a clear view from on high and saw, fortunately, no signs of problems there.
 
Then we went to bed, I went online and began reading accounts of people’s experiences: a rolling feeling, rattling windows, the sound and sense of a dump truck emptying its load on the front lawn. I know exactly what the latter sounds like, having lived on Bloor Street downtown where dump and other kinds of trucks would bang every time they hit a bump or metal plate on the road during construction (which seemed to be regularly and at all hours).
 
We’re about 20 kilometres from Friday Harbor as the crow flies (although it takes the ferry an hour-and-a-half to get there, as we found out en route to the Jays/Mariners weekend in Seattle last summer). Part of our house is on stilts and perhaps that’s some of the reason we felt so little of the quake: we’re up high enough that ours is the neighbourhood to which people fleeing in the event of a tsunami warning come and park. And we’ll put the coffee on if they’re near our place!
 
Once again, like the tsunami warning that hit the island after the big Alaska quake a few weeks back, the little shaker reminded Rob and me that we still haven’t put together a “go bag” to prepare us for the eventual Big One, for which we pay fully half of our homeowners’ insurance. It’s not like we’ll need to seek higher ground (there isn’t any) but we do need to have supplies to take, in the event we have to bug out. After all, there were three quakes in the 4+ range just north of Vancouver Island three weeks ago and another 1.9 last week in nearby Sooke. I guess this is a regular thing, is what they’re telling us? 
 
It’s a tough notion to get your head around – the idea of evacuating. I mean, we did look at properties right on the ocean shore and I’d be sleeping a lot more lightly if that was the address we’d chosen. But still, even if we made a list, is there time to gather the items on it? An urn? A ponytail? Some jewellery and our passports? My purse, laptop and Molly and her stuff? That’s a lot to think of in a few short seconds, especially when half of those seconds are spent wondering just who the heck is dumping stuff in your front yard right now!
 
Last word from vicnews.com: “Vicki Walker had a different reaction. ‘Thought it was my husband snoring so I elbowed him,’ she said. ‘Poor guy.'”
 
Have a great Monday and we’ll be back with you here tomorrow.