Today a 5.9 magnitude earthquake hit Virginia. This was too close to home, if you ask me. My family is near there. And many friends. And many of you. But from what I understand, all is well … mostly. And I am so grateful.
What happened today, of course, was not the huge magnitude as many of the other natural disasters we’ve all become familiar with over recent years. But what happened today certainly brought about some feelings, anxieties, uncertainties, and even fears in many. Even if no one was hurt, even if there was no damage on your street, many of you were affected by today’s earthquake.
Because many of us think a lot about documenting life, and recognize the power and blessings in doing so … I wanted to ask you: How do you document something like this? Where do you record written thoughts about how you’re affected? What do you photograph? How do you document?
I would love to share several ideas — your ideas — about this on my blog ASAP, since it’s still very fresh. If you have a picture or thought to share (whether from today’s earthquake or any past experience in your neck of the woods), please email submissions@beckyhiggins.com. I’ll collect the ideas and share tomorrow.
I appreciate your sentiment, but really? 5.9? It’s just a little rumble. Barely distinguishable from a big truck rolling down the street. It’ll all be ok.
With love, from a reader on the quakey Pacific Rim.
Has to be rememebered that although only 5.9 on Richter scale it was only 1km deep which makes it quite a sizeable shake and certainly capable of doing damage. ( From a New Zealander who has experienced plenty of these significant quakes in the last 12 months!)
NOT a rumble to people who don’t experience this and certainly scary when our US monuments have visible damage. emotional moment watching the people here in the DC metro area and in NY out on the streets just like 9/11 with no phone coverage to speak to loved ones still really wondering and saying Are you SURE this was just an earthquake?? Tell the kids in my county who were evacuated from their schools because their schools received damage that it was just a rumble. Why minimize another person’s worry? Plus she is just talking about Life and documenting it. Just my opinion….
It also probably didn’t seem like “just a rumble” to those who were in the DC and New York subways and were deathly afraid that it was another terrorist attack. I know if we had an earthquake here in Missouri I would be very, very afraid, even if it was less than a 5.9.
We live in CT and while I didn’t feel anything here at home, I got a text from my husband who definitely felt it at work. We texted back and forth for a bit, trading information as we learned it. I’m doing Project Life and will use those texts to document this event.
Love this idea SusanB!
I’m looking forward to ideas on how to document this as well. But I did run to my journal and write, “I just experienced my first EARTHQUAKE!!!” How do you document nausea? Cause as I felt this small shaking, I suddenly got slightly queasy. Of course I thought one of my children was messing with the couch…so I told him to stop it. He comes out of his room and says, “Stop what?” Oops. Sorry, falsely accused…sorry, little man. But the concern I have for my family and everyone else is…how prepared are we? Because, and I maybe mis-stating this, but I believe that the earthquake didn’t happen over a fault line. So it could cause actual fault lines to react. And just because I’m down here in North Carolina, doesn’t mean we won’t experience things that don’t normally happen here (like the Tornado we had back in April…fyi: we don’t have tornados here). So my goals are to prepare and maybe start documenting that.
Sheri: I’m in Raleigh and my subdivision was hit pretty hard by the tornado on April 16th. I never thought that would happen–a hurricane maybe (remember Fran?), but not a tornado.
Susie and Sheri: I live in Raleigh too, and my brother-in-law’s neighborhood (near Serendipity) was hit hard and yes though tornados don’t usually hit NC (there was a big one in ’88) it was a big wake up call that they can hit anywhere. Fran was bad too, we lost nearly 20 trees but none hit our house thankfully! I did experience an earthquake when I was young though growing up in upstate NY. I remember it was before 6AM and I thought my brother was playing a joke on me and was hiding under the bed shaking it, then we thought maybe a dump truck was going down our street and didn’t realize it was an earthquake until we turned on the TV. Not huge but definitely something I’ll remember forever.
Hope you all stay safe as we keep our eye on Irene, hopefully she’ll go back out to sea.
I live in California and when we had a 7.2 on Easter Sunday 2010, I made it a point to talk about it in my journaling.. ‘the calm before the storm’ so to speak. Thankfully I had no damage to my house, but some broken glass. But I did talk about the kids and how they reacted. Since it was Easter Sunday we had tons of family over and so I had different perspectives. I also put the newspaper articles that covered that day in with my pages. We actually had a whole section dedicated to the earthquake in our local paper, so there were pictures too.
Where was the 7.2 in Cali last year? Wow, I clearly remember the 1994 6.something in Northridge. The epicenter blocks from my house. Usually earthquakes kinda wavy and not so scarey as that one in 1994.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/se082311a.html
I got this on FB and have printed it as my POTD. Being in VA, we NEVER get earthquakes. We were all shaken from the event and will remember it for a very long time. I’m sorry we aren’t “seasoned” like the West coast folks… This was a BIG DEAL for us. Glad your family is alright, Becky!
Thanks for the link I too am in VA and I printed that page! Thanks!
You photograph everything!! We are now 6 months down the track from our big quake on the 22nd Feb and even though we had no power for that first week we could still take photos of how we were managing at home. Initially it was just too awful to go out “sightseeing” and take photos. I also kept a diary during those first weeks and put them as diary posts on my blog once the power came back on. I also printed them all off for my PL album. The most recent lot of photos I did was all the signage that we now have to put up with. My PL album is full of the quakes and what we are dealing with and how we are coping. (I am onto my second PL album for the year). Even now we are still waiting for our local mall to reopen and my son is still site sharing with another school until his reopens in a couple of weeks. I have also made many 12×12 scrapbook layouts as well. Most of it is on my blog if interested although I haven’t put up my PL pages since the Feb quake. My heart sank when I heard on our news this morning about the quake as it brings it all back just what it was like and hope there are no casualties or too much damage.
I bring up my Internet provider and go to msn.com and take a picture of the breaking news headline. Then write on my journaling card what happened. I have done it for many events that have had a big impact on the world this year.
I love this idea!
I found out through FB that my sister was okay. I didn’t even know about the quake until I read her “We are okay” post. Even with knowing she was okay I still was anxious until I heard her voice. Living apart is scary in times like this.
My hubby works for the newspaper depo so all of the papers I’ll have in the AM as well will go online & look for a graph of some sort to show the earthquake. I’m in NY- in long island and didnt feel anything but my mom that is in the city did feel it. Interesting day indeed!
I would gather my family together and take an immediate photo and document what it’s like to be all together and what happened on this day. Have all of the children write down their feelings as well as the adults in the household about the earthquake and then make that a special page in my project life album. Family is so very precious and I hope everything goes well with yours Becky.
Take care!
Good question! I eagerly await the suggestions. I live in South Louisiana and still have not documented Hurricane Katrina. It’s still hard to even think about it and we are still reading in the news about recovery and court cases still going on. Thanks, Becky
I live in Ohio — the news said it was felt here but i did not feel it.
i think a good way to document “newsworthy” events is to photography newspapers, web pages or even the TV screen during the news (I have a couple TV shots from this past winter when my kids had snow days and I photographed when their school delay was shown on the news).
As for writing feelings, I think it is truly as simple as that — just write them down. If they are not for the general public, tuck them behind a photo or even in a pretty envelope and make it part of your book or layout.
I was on a cruise ship when japan was hit with the earthquake. we took a photograph of the tv and the news station
My best friend and I just talked about how she should document her first earthquake in Project Life. (I didn’t feel it in Ohio, but she felt an aftershock in NYC.) She’s planning on printing a screenshot of Facebook from right after everyone felt it, because a bunch of her coworkers took to Facebook to comment on what they felt or didn’t feel.
And sorry for the freakout to you West-Coasters. I guess feeling the earth shake for the first time ever in a region where that doesn’t really happen feels like a big deal.
Tracey – don’t apologize. All of us on the East Coast are entitled to feel like this earthquake was a big deal. Because IT WAS, to us. Other people that talk/look down upon us for our “freakout” maybe need to remember what it was like the first time they experienced something unnatural to them.
as a “west coaster” ANY Shaking is scary to me so don’t apologize! I “freakout” EVERY time!
sorry you guys had to experience that! I get nervous each time I hear about it happening anywhere
because I know what it feels like.
agreed! I’m in VA and we felt it. scary thing is our structures here on the east coast are not built to withstand earthquakes so when your children are in very old schools you definitely get scared.
It scared me too! I’m in CT and I was standing talking to my coworker when we felt the building shake. We looked at eachother and both of us had that “oh crap” look on our faces, although we had no idea what just happened. Our building was evacuated for about 30 minutes. Working after that was weird – we all felt “off”. Maybe it wasn’t a big quake like our friends out west experience but it was a first for many of us and certainly a little unnerving.
I was in the middle of the earthquake(working in a NICU) and literally saw things move and experienced the shake. With that in mind, I was planning on just writing about it. However, the local DJ made a point that we take life for granted way to much. That really struck home as I remembered worried moms calling the check on their babies. I am probably going to focus more on “little things” when I document, as this earthquake could have been much worse. I hope that all made sense as I wrote it!
For big news events like this, I usually just take a picture of the topic on the news for my POTD. Even though what we felt in Ohio was not very strong, it is still the first earthquake I have ever experienced. It made me very glad that my sister moved out of VA last year.
It doesn’t matter what the “event” is – earthquake, tornado, snow – if you’re experiencing it for the first time EVER then it’s going to be an amazing, confusing, exciting, scary and unnerving adrenalin-rush. Our planet is doing weird things right now, and we’re so connected by social media and technology these days that we all get to experience those feelings right alongside you. Snow in the part of New Zealand where I live NEVER happens, so two weeks ago when it came down in bucketloads I was experiencing the feelings for the first time that many people take for granted. But I also experience earthquakes frequently, so it’s interesting to hear/see the reaction from people in your part of the world for something that I am used to. Those snapshots of feelings are what we need to document – that sense of wonder and awe at the experience. I’m not good at journaling but I intend to scrap that snow event with a title like “My First Time …”, using the most abstract photo and surrounding it with one-off words that describe what it looked it like and how I felt.
And like all events that are happening at the moment, I’m glad it wasn’t any worse for those on the US East Coast.
We lost our home a little over a year ago now to a tornado. We’re still coming to terms with all the after affects. Not just from the storm itself but from the drama dealing with our insurance company and various others after the fact. It’s changed my husband and I in more ways than we’ve probably even realized. We have extreme anxiety whenever a storm is coming. Lots of sleepless nights!
I documented the basics on my blog. Writing helped me a lot. I took pictures of absolutely everything. I am very happy now that I did so. We’ve moved on with our lives and and have begun to forget all the little details of that event. While it’s not a happy memory it is part of what makes up our lives and I’m glad I documented it when it was still fresh.
While I was documenting us moving on with our lives in PL I did fall off the bandwagon when things got really crazy. I am so happy that I have the memories and thoughts I captured from the few months I stuck with it though. I am very excited about starting fresh with the new kit now that we are in a new home and starting to get settled.
http://tutusandchaos.blogspot.com/2010/06/tornado-june-6-2010.html
Another thought I wanted to add. If you are documenting a tragedy in your area, please keep in mind how others might be feeling. There was a steady stream of cars driving by our home taking pictures of it. How many of those people got out and asked if we needed anything? Not one.
This is SUCH a good point!
I’m so sorry for your loss! It’s a shame that not one of those people could offer help. They passed up the opportunity to perform a much needed “17 second miracle”. Hopefully your comment will inspire more of us to reach out and help when we see the chance.
I was a bit taken back by one of the comments made about how “little” our lovely quake was here in VA. Sure, it’s nothing compared to what happened in Japan earlier in the year, or even what happens on the West Coast. But, for us who have never experienced something like that, it was something HUGE.
We live about 2 hours from the epicenter, and I was chilling with my husband before we needed to take him to the airport so he could get a flight this afternoon to Brazil for work. My 16-month-old son napped completely through it.
I’ll probably print the details from the USGS site (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/se082311a.html#details) and also some of the maps and make a page using that info along with possibly copy-and-pasting some of the first status messages that I saw pop up on Facebook, and also see about getting a newspaper tomorrow, as well.
As for the immediate future, other than getting a newspaper and saving some of that info (probably right on my blog tonight), I’ve now got to prepare for a hurricane. Unfortunately, Mother Nature isn’t giving me much time to process/document and still live a “normal” life at the moment.
I’m so glad you asked for input on this topic. Shouldn’t we all be more sensitive to others?
I read quite a few blogs through the week and I seldom see anything “negative”. I know that thinking positive is all the rage and we certainly need that, but from this side of the computer screen, it seems like so many have idyllic lives–and I know that isn’t so. They sure keep that part of their lives hidden. There should be a call for honesty! Everyone has rain as well as sunshine.
I live in Salem, OH and was the only one in my office that felt the earthquake. Everyone thought I was crazy. I checked the internet before the story broke, and I thought that maybe they were right (although I knew I felt something)!
About 15 minutes later, I received an email from my sister in Youngstown with the subject “Did you feel that earthquake?!”, followed by one from from my brother in Detroit that said “I felt it too!” I printed those off and plan to use them in my Project Life album!
This was my blog entry for today. When I scrap it, I’ll have a picture of A C Moore looking like it’s vibrating.
http://chocolatemousie.blogspot.com/2011/08/i-feel-earth-move-under-my-feet.html
Maybe you could find some newspaper articles on the earthquake. The paper might have photos you could include into your scrapbooking.
I plan to print out the e-mails I sent to my mom & MIL, letting them know that my daughters and I were fine. Hubby works in D.C. And I hadnot been able to reach him. Cell phones were jammed, but I was still able to communicate by e-mail. I will tuck the printouts into a pocket in this week’s Project Life page.
I know it is scary to hear about a disaster when your loved ones are far from home…
I’m in IL, and didn’t feel this one, but we had a 5.5 earthquake hit us about 3 years ago. It woke my husband and I up from sleeping, and it was scary. We heard the rumble, the bed was shaking and the dresser handles were rattling. Our dog was sleeping in the same room, and she quickly jumped up in bed with us. My very first thought was that my husband was having a very violent seizure and was shaking everything. When I discovered he was ok(he’s had no history of seizures…), my husband told me what was happening. We didnt’ have any damage, but I documented the event. It only happens historically every 20 yrs or so for IL. There was one picture hung on our living room wall that was askew from the shaking. I photographed it and journalled about the event and my feelings about it.
I live in NC and I think something printed from the internet (headline or article) or from the newspaper would be something to add to my PL album.
I took a screenshot from an article posted on msn.
I’ll document it with a little story of being in the same room with my husband- who felt it, while I felt nothing!
It was such a strange day!
For your photograph, I was thinking you could leave your exposure on just a little bit on your camera then go outside (or inside. whichever you want.) and take your photo, slightly shaking the camera. This will make your picture slightly blurry like the ground was shaking when you took the photo.
Hope this helps!
We felt it here in Raleigh and it really freaked us out as well. I record everything via my blog and have for the past 4 years. Then when I’m ready to add something to an album…I know that I have my memories recorded and where to find them.
http://con-tain-it.typepad.com/love_shack_nonsense/2011/08/earthquake-shakes-up-the-love-shack.html
I think the best way would be to create a page about gratitude titled “The Day The Earth Moved and changed my world” … you could journal a reflection of events and perhaps then follow up with what you are thankful for having not been affected directly affected by it but still affected due to family connection.
HTH
Manola
Australia
I am collecting the on-line news articles and local newspaper articles. My hubby and son ( we live in NC!! ) felt the earthquake, my dad ( lives in Baltimore ), but I was at work and did not feel it, but some of my co-workers DID feel it. So, I am going to journaling what they felt during the earthquake. I know that I was in a panic after it happened because I could not reach my hubby, dad through cell phones because Verizon lost some power. It felt like 9/11 all over again for me.
When bin Laden was killed, I photographed the front page of the newspaper the following day. (I also kept the paper) Then wrote about what happened and how it effects our country’s history.
Here in Cali, where earthquakes are a common occurrence (l live directly over the San Andreas fault)… I barely flinched at the sound of a 5.9 (other than that it happened in “divers places”… hmmm) but it did remind me to be prepared. I should document some of the things we do to be prepared around here. I bet it’s completely different than what people in the midwest do.
I took a photo of my son in the lifeguard chair while on duty about 3 minutes before the earthquake. As I stood talking to him, we suddenly both felt the ground moving alot! He exclaimed, “Mom! My chair is moving!” We even heard the loud sound associated with earthquakes. All this right in Great Falls, VA! So, yes, earthquakes of this magnitude are normal for some folks but definately not us true Washingtonians, born and raised here!! And despite the fact that this seismic activity doesn’t compare to other parts of the country and world, one must remember that here on the east coast there are no building codes requiring that our structures withstand ANY amount of seismic activity!
So my POTD will definately be my son in his lifeguard chair.
glad you got him out of the chair before! poor thing!! I”m in VA and I took pictures of the things that fell, broke etc and printed a few things so I’m thinking a multi photo one photo through photoshop and then an actual layout documenting it all. I’m sure I’ll be following up with one for hurricane Irene!!
Nope….rode the whole thing out in the lifeguard chair!!
I did a little something different. I took a picture of all the kids in our neighborhood having a picnic outside waiting for the aftershocks to pass. I also printed out the epicenter map from the USGS site and that is in my book already. We were only 30 miles from it. I’ve never experienced one before and I didn’t know what the best thing was to protect my family. A scary day indeed as was the 4.2 aftershock that happened at 8 last night!
When something like the recent earthquake effects my life I use newspaper articles or photos as a jump start to my journalling. The newspaper provides all the details leaving me free to share my thoughts and feelings around an event in my journalling. I like how the this technique tells the whole story so that when my daughter is grown she will understand how a certain event effected not only our family, but how it affected the community we live in.
I think you focus on the story and your senses here … this might be a page where you show some aftereffect photos. But, I think you tell of the experience. Use words to describe what happened. Perhaps illustrate with a newspaper clipping, or a photo of it. Or print out an email.
Going away from photo and product based stuff … focus instead on repetition … “I remember” as a prompt line and repeating it …
This is a fun chance to be creative!!!
Love this challenge – and I’m intrigued by the responses.
I am in GA and we did not feel it here. However, most of my family and alot of my friends are in the North East (VA to NY) and I will be documenting this for in our book because they all felt it and all wrote about it on FB and in emails to me. These people are all a part of our lives and this effected us and them. I will be pulling off the FB comments as well as printing the emails and headlines for the day.
I personally was about 15 minutes away from the epicenter. My entire house was shaking like a ragdoll. Thank goodness we made it through. Though we are still experiencing MANY aftershocks.
So many in the Mineral and Louisa area have been effected by this. Schools have been closed for the rest of the school year, the students of Louisa High School have started a campaign to invite Ty Pennington and his school here to rebuild their school. (Go Lions!).
I’ve been a scrapbooker for 14 years now and I find this the most difficult to scrapbook. I have been visiting the earthquake site which documents the seismic activity we have (and still are experiencin) and plan to print it out to go along with the other headlines and local papers:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov
Those who pray … please say a prayer for those in Mineral, Louisa and surrounding areas as they work through the damage, frayed nerves and aftershocks.
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