This is What an Earthquake Is

The first thing I remember was the force. The same force you feel when you're zooming down the incline of a roller coaster.

It was 16 years ago this morning that a 6.4 earthquake hit the San Fernando Valley on a previously unknown fault. We all went from being Valley Boys and Valley Girls to being earthquake survivors.

It was around 4:30 in the morning and with the world shaking around me, that force was so great that I couldn't get out of bed.

All my life as a So Cal kid, I was trained to find a table and get under it. But I couldn't even get out of bed as the G-force produced by the quake kept me in bed. The most I could do was put the pillow over my head and wait for it to end.

When it was over, I remember the darkness. No power on a new moon twilight.

I immediately reached for the door to my bedroom, and it wouldn't open. With it completely dark and no idea what your surroundings looked like, I wondered... was I trapped? Had everything collapsed around me? Was the world still there?

Then I realized..... My bed was blocking the door.

Then I realized, I shouldn't be able to reach for the door from my bed. It had been on the other side of the room. The bed, with me in it, had traveled from one side of the room to the other, and it wasn't on wheels.

That is what an Earthquake is.

For perspective, the quake in Haiti was about six times more powerful with infrastructure dozens of times less strong.

There are still lives to be saved in Haiti. Text "Haiti" to 90999 and contribute $10 to relief efforts.