Ripples in the Bathtub

It had all the makings of an uneventful, relaxed Saturday. I allowed myself the luxury of staying in bed to almost 8:00 before getting up to share a cup of coffee with Rick to plan our day. We had the whole day to do whatever we wanted. Unlike most Saturdays, we had no where go and nothing pressing to do. The plan was to treat myself to a hot bath before we went out to breakfast at Kasilof Mercantile on our way to Soldotna. Sunday was Auden’s birthday party, and we still needed to do a little shopping. About 9:00, I decided to start getting the show on the road. Unlike my spacious bathroom in Wisconsin, our bathroom in Ninilchik is pretty small, which usually prompted me to just jump in and out of the shower as quickly as possible. In the spirit of rest and relaxation, I chose to take a good long soak. All of the sudden I had this strange sensation. It felt as if I were in an RV that was being rocked around by some a mighty strong wind. Trying to make some sense of it, I thought maybe I was just lightheaded from the hot water. I had been swirling the water to distribute the hot water evenly, maybe I was just caught up in the waves. Then it crossed my mind that it might be an earthquake. The Kenai Peninsula is in the Ring of Fire, and I’ve been told there are weekly occurrences of undetectable seismic activity; that could be a possibility. It was so mild and brief that it didn’t seem likely, but I decided to let the water settle to see if I could see any vibrations in the water. Whatever it was, it was over now. I crawled out of the tub just as I hear my phone ring with a text message. Jesse was texting to see if we had felt the earthquake. I called him back, and he told me that they were in bed when they felt the tremor. It evidently was stronger at their house and was enough to cause a noticeable vibration in things in their bedroom. All were safe and sound. It was a surprise to Rick, he never noticed a thing. It wasn’t long and we were heading for Soldotna. We visited the mail carrier. She had been driving and hadn’t noticed the quake but heard about it on the radio. I turned on the radio and the reports were that the earthquake registered a 5.7-6.3. There was no known damage, mainly because the epicenter was determined to be of shore, over 60 miles west of Homer (about 100 miles from Ninilchik), and no tsunami warnings were issued. The earthquake had been felt as far as Anchorage, over 200 miles from the epicenter. I over heard one lady mentioned it was the strongest one she had experienced since she lived here. Earthquakes here in Alaska are inevitable. You can’t live this close to mountains and volcanoes strategically placed on the Ring of Fire and not have earthquakes. The reality of situation was brought to my attention at school after a three hour inservice that dealt with nothing but earthquake and volcano disaster training. After being assigned to be in charge of the morgue and seeing many photos taken after the earthquake of ’64, I knew it was one disaster I didn’t want to encounter. Yet, I must admit I was hoping to have a little seismic experience. This ten-second event was all I needed to shake up an otherwise uneventful, relaxing Saturday.