DC Weather

crack in the newly painted main guest room

It has been a crazy week weather-wise in DC.  First the earthquake and then the hurricane.  ON Tuesday, I was home for the earthquake, on the phone with Fiona, who was lived in California.  Basically, she is an expert in earthquakes.  She was laughing at me as I was experiencing my first earthquake (that I was awake for-- apparently there was one during the night in Kentucky when I was 8.  My 7 year old sister was the only one who felt it.)

Stirling had been barking at me for about 20 minutes and when it started to come closer to us, she darted outside.  Fiona said to get to a doorway.  I did-- but kept right on going to the outside.  Apparently that is exactly what you are not supposed to do.  Ahem.  The super intense shaking last about 3-4 seconds, but the whole thing last about 45 seconds.  At first I thought it was jack hammering from the neighbors next door doing home improvements.  The floor was all wavy, and then the walls started to shake-- the noise was incredibly loud.  I was shouting into the phone to Fiona the whole time so she could hear me over the rumbling, "Ah, Fiona, I think that we are having an earthquake!"  I think that, as she was giggling at me and my reaction, agreed with me.   

After 45 seconds, it moved on-- and of course, damaged the finials at the Cathedral, two blocks away.  Afterwards, I inspected the house.  We had several new wall cracks appear.  Brick houses don't take to shaking very well.  The most frustrating thing: new cracks in both of the newly painted rooms!  Mainly around the windows and easily fixed.  But we were so close to being completely done with those two spaces.  *sigh* 

For the hurricane last night, we were fine.  Lots of rain and huge wind gusts, but for the most part the gusts were not sustained.  I think that some of them were about 85 mph. Some areas of DC got over 10 inches of rain.  We certainly have over saturated ground, but I don't think that we accumulated more than 6 inches of rain here.  Our barrels are certainly full!  Not to mention that our yard is mess: full of leaves and other tree debris.  We manged to keep power the entire storm and went out about 11 pm (for Stirling's final walk of the night) and noticed that most of the neighborhood still had lights.  A relief for many here, since when Hurricane Isabelle went through in 2003, our street alone was without power for 8 days.  

Anyway, we are fine, if not a bit soggy.  Fingers crossed that we are done with the wild weather for a while: record heat in July, an earthquake and now a hurricane.   Secretly, however, I am hoping that come winter,  we will have massive snowfall like two years ago.  It will make for one bizarre weather year!