Last week there was a quake here in San Salvador. Ironically, I was sitting at the dining table at my guest house, working on a Mac there when the all-too familiar shaking started. Sitting at a Mac just like I was during most of the shakes I have felt in Los Angeles for the past many years. Seriously, over 5 months of not sitting at a Mac and here I was – same combo.
So here I was relaxing and doing some casual work, when the ground shook. Not rocked. Shook. Sharper than what I felt most in LA. In LA I lived 2 floors up, too high to exit through a window, and always wondered if it was best to stay inside or go out. Here, I was in a single home, but up some stairs. And immediately outside are major electric wires. I wasn’t sure of the building structure, but those wires were a definite not-gambling-that. I remained inside, in the main room.
I just learned that last night there was a 7.3 earthquake off the coast of El Salvador 10:37 pm and a 5.4 aftershock an hour later. At 10:37 I believe I was awake, sitting in that same room and was with a friend. For the aftershock, we were both still awake but upstairs. Neither of us, nor others at this guest house, felt these. We all did wonder though, why people were emailing us to ask if we were ok.
Today, looking at this main room, I know that I did the right thing during the first earthquake. This building was built in the 1960s and is very solid and the walls in middle of this main level appear to be the best places to be in a quake.