Earthquakes, Hurricanes and Freshmen; Oh My

I returned to northern Virginia after a few weeks with my folks up in Massachusetts and while things up there were not great weather wise I had no idea it was going to be far worse down here. Right before I left New England the news was predicting that hurricane Irene would be hitting the greater DC area over the weekend. Given the location of DC it appears that the brunt of the Irene will pass us to the east, so we will have rain and wind but not too much (and now that I in the middle of that storm I can say that the weather folk appeared to be right). After hearing that DC would be spared the full force of the storm when I returned to Virginia I was relived. I had a trip planed to western Virginia for the next few days so with the knowledge that the storm would not hinder me after returning I headed out. Little did I know that we would have an earthquake. Now I had never known that the Virginia area has earthquakes but apparently it dose. Evidently Virginia is no stranger to the smaller magnitude earthquakes but this nearly 6.0 quake was the largest in many years. Oddly enough I did not feel the quake, at the time I was walking with a friend of mine, we were approached by a woman from her house asking us if we felt the quake. We said no since neither of us had, she was surprised by this fact since it was quite powerful. From what I have heard if you were inside or stationary during the quake you felt it but if you were in motion you did not notice it.

After I returned to Arlington there was an aftershock, which I also did not feel. At this point Irene was well on its way to the coast and on top of that it was time for the freshmen to move in. I had volunteered to help move in freshmen earlier in the week before I realized that Irene would be coming up the cost around that time. Lucky for me, the freshmen move in was totally Irene; well the humidity of the day may have been from Irene. This year’s freshmen look like they are ready to start college, and with an earthquake and hurricane on their first few days I am sure that they will have an eventful year.