More natural disasters

OK, I'm starting to get a little freaked now. Hurricane Irene, a category two hurricane in the West Indies, looks set to swing up the eastern seaboard and land directly on New Jersey and New York on Sunday.

We've spent the night photographing the family's possessions and making sure that all important documents are secure. For all the e-commerce in the world insurance companies aren't going to be impressed with a printout alone. M's folks are already stocked up on food, water and medicine, and have an impressive larder, although if the power goes out there will be some frenzied cooking of frozen stuff.

The news channels are full of nothing else and we check in periodically for updates. Some of the news was a tad alarmist. Someone on the TV advised people to write their name, social security number and date of birth on a piece of paper, wrap in plastic and put it in their left shoe and lace it up. There's something to induce panic, and for no good reason.

M's parents are being very nice about it but I suspect they might have reason to regard me as something of a natural jinx. The last time I was here at Christmas we had a massive snow storm that dumped 26 inches of snow in 24 hours, snowing us in for two days. So far on this visit we've had an earthquake and now a hurricane.

Heaven only knows what's going to happen when I come next time – a rain of frogs, multiple lightning strikes or a small volcano no doubt. Personally I'm hoping for slow zombies. Everyone's being very nice about things, but I suspect 200 years ago I'd be hauled out and burnt as one of Satan's imps for this run of bad luck :) Thank goodness for progress.

Earthquake redux

OK, not content with yesterday's earthquake the forces of nature have given us another one – not here thank goodness but back at home in the Bay area.

There was force 3.5 in Oakland this morning. Apparently it's not too severe, but the housesitter informs us Boo was a little freaked and got very clingy. Given she usually sits on my head at night the little mite must have grafted herself to our friend. Poor little devil, looking forward to seeing her again.

Earthquake!

I've been living in California for over three years now and I've never felt an earthquake. There have been a couple but I've always been somewhere else. Now I come to New Jersey and feel one within days.

It was around 2pm when we got to the beach and set up the deck chairs and umbrella before anointing ourselves with sunscreen and settling down for a quick picnic before going for a swim. As I sat down the chair I noticed it was rocking. M remarked on it as well, and we agreed it was probably just the wind. But the rocking didn't stop, in fact it intensified, before dropping away after about ten seconds.

A minute or so later someone in the group next to us started to talk about a tremor, so M popped over to have a chat. Turns out the wind wasn't that strong; instead a 5.8 quake had hit Virginia and we'd felt it a few hundred miles away. It turns out the plate that makes up part of the East Coast is fairly solid and unbroken, so seismic shock carries further than on the West coast, where the plate is more broken up.

It's my first US earthquake (I've felt one in the UK) and was exciting, and a little worrying. We shall see what the rest of the week brings...