TV News Anchors in Oklahoma City Struggle to Keep Composure During Earthquake
I've got roots in Oklahoma. It's where 95% of my family lives. It's where I finished high school. It's where I dropped out of college. More on that another time. It's also now earthquake-central.
Several times a week my Facebook feed is filled with people commenting on the strength of the latest earthquake. Being in an earthquake can be quite terrifying. You tell yourself ahead of time what to do in case of an earthquake, but in reality you freeze and hope for the best when it happens.
Despite what I was always told, experts now tell you not to go to a door frame and hold on because the door is likely to slam shut and take your fingers with it. They say the safest thing is to get under a table and hold on to a table leg to protect yourself from falling debris. In reality... you just freeze.
I lived in Alaska for three years, and earthquakes are fairly common. I even got a haircut during a 9.1 earthquake, the strongest on record in this part of the world in 50 years. Unlike what it looks like on TV, most earthquakes produce more of a side-to-side motion, not just shaking. Walking across the room during that particular earthquake, I was walking a straight line as the floor moved left-to-right under my feet.
Whatever the cause of the Oklahoma earthquakes (most point to fracking), it's certainly gotten the attention of the Okies I see on Facebook. Yesterday morning, back-to-back earthquakes shook the OKC metro area, and two different morning weather anchors had very colorful reactions.
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