Earthquake!

For once I was the last one up. But hey, the shaking felt as if someone were trying to rouse me out of bed, and I had ten more minutes: it was only 4:37 a.m. That's mostly what I'll remember, beyond the alarm clock shaking on top of the TV after everything else quieted. Yeah, yeah. I'm up! The other members of my household have more specific recall about a doorway bead curtain shaking and the sound of the whole house vibrating. At least it wasn't a tornado: their first thought.

Anyway, magnitude 5.4, centered in Evansville, Indiana, hundreds of miles from here. How midwesternly wide. And of course I looked online for detail about our morning experience. No way I'm turning the television on for EARTHQUAKE! redux. It's too early for that kind of nonsense. The stories are now propagating, but my favorite is the first one that seemed to be out there, quickly posted by some guy in the surely empty Evansville newspaper offices, apparently calling his friends:

Earthquake rattles Tri-State
By Ryan Reynolds
Originally published 04:42 a.m., April 18, 2008
Updated 04:47 a.m., April 18, 2008

An earthquake rattled the Tri-State in the early morning hours Friday.

The shaking, which started at about 4:35 a.m. CDT, lasted about 10 seconds.

A reporter at the Associated Press building in downtown Indianapolis reported feeling the earthquake as well. Scott Rosenburgh, a former Courier & Press advertising manager now working in a suburb northwest of Chicago, said the quake woke him there. The quake also awoke people in St. Louis, Mo.

The National Weather Service Office in Paducah had had reports of items being knocked off walls in the Poseyville area.

Police dispatch in Evansville reported the investigation of a possible gas leak on Bayard Bark Drive near Kerth. More information will be posted as it becomes available.