Earthquake not that Scary -- at Least Afterward

FIRST PERSON | HOPEWELL, Va. -- It all started when someone said, "Hey, do you feel that?" It took a second or two, but I did feel it. Then I heard it.

Was someone running through the hallway? It seemed contained to just the office we were in. But then a strange roar filled the air and our thinking evolved. There was no one in the hallway; it was an unseen tractor trailer passing on the street outside. But as we waited for the truck to finally pass, we realized it was something much more than that.

That's when we all got up and started heading for the door. No one else seemed to quite comprehend exactly what we were feeling. They thought maybe the building was just falling down around us. But I knew. I'd felt it a few years before: "This is an earthquake."

I said it calmly, matter-of-fact-ly. We joked about it later. How strange it sounded at the time.

I remember the building shaking beneath my feet. I remember thinking that you're supposed to stand in a doorway during an earthquake. I remember being frustrated that, apparently, no one else remembered this as we all flooded out of the office and down to the first floor to get out of the building. I remember that split-second of hesitation about whether I should go back to my own desk to grab my phone and my purse. I didn't get them. I just scrambled out the door with everyone else.

At the time, it did feel like scrambling. But when I remember back now, it really wasn't so scary. We all laughed about it as we stood outside. Some of us exchanged worried looks, shell-shocked. All of us grew a little more concerned once we realized that the cell towers weren't keeping up with incoming and outgoing calls.

It took us all a few minutes to realize and admit what had happened. We were concerned that it was just our building. That it might collapse at any moment. But then we saw employees from the restaurant next door come out and share worried smiles. We weren't the only ones who'd felt it. The reports started coming in then. Friends and family as far north as D.C. and New Jersey had felt it as well. That's when we knew it was real.