Napa Earthquake

So I was going to write up a nice little pictorial review of our time in San Francisco and Napa, but because I experienced my first um... EARTHQUAKE... this morning, I'm going to put that off for another time.

Today's earthquake occurred at 3:20 a.m., was 6.0 on the Richter scale and originated south of Napa. We were asleep in the Hyatt Regency San Francisco, a highrise on the Embarcadero, on the 6th floor from street level.

I woke to shaking, with the building shifting abruptly back and forth and what sounded like lightning striking the hotel over and over every half second or so- BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM. I knew exactly what it was and thought the entire building was coming apart.

Jeff was asleep and probably would have slept through the whole thing if I hadn't woken him up. (Wha???!) He says I "beat him awake," but I would say I "shook him" although perhaps rigorously. That's my story. Sticking to it.

Now, the only thing I know about earthquakes is to stand in a doorway, so I got up and headed for the door to our room. I was shaking like a leaf at that point and really freaked out. Jeff came over and stopped me and I was saying, "Aren't we supposed to stand in a doorway?" (Turns out he thought I was heading OUT the door. Where the heck would I go? He didn't know, but as I said-- I was freaking out, so he wasn't sure.)

He's lived in Cali and during the shaking he was all "it's fine" and "buildings are built to withstand these things here" blah blah. (He later said if that hotel was coming down, there was nothing we were going to be able to do about it. True, but yeesh.)

Finally it stopped. It was about 30 seconds. I realized I wasn't ever hearing any crumbling, so maybe the hotel wasn't coming down.

A couple of minutes later, Lauren texted us: Were y'all in an earthquake just now? (Ain't Twitter fast?)

Actually... YES WE WERE! And holy *#%&!

Over the PA, the hotel announced that there had been an earthquake. Everything was fine and it was safe for people to go back to their rooms. If anyone was uncomfortable sleeping in their room, they had pillows and blankets downstairs and you could sleep in the lobby.

I could never decide why people would think that was a good option. Jeff thought it would be better to be on the bottom if the building collapsed, rather than riding it down and perhaps getting trapped for days. I think he may be insanely calm about this whole thing.

A few minutes later they announced that the police were aware of the earthquake and people could stop calling 911. It was worded much nicer than that, but that was the gist.

Tourists.

Seriously though, a hotel was the best and worst place to be. The best, because those of us who aren't familiar with earthquakes had a place to ask questions and receive information we wouldn't otherwise have had (like on Friday when we spent the entire day outside in Napa Valley). The worst because it's an enormous crowd of freaked out folks with no experience with this stuff.

So honestly, thank you, Hyatt Regency SF, for the info and the calming announcements and most importantly for a building that withstands earthquakes!

I was positive I would not be able to go back to sleep, but I finally did. I woke up twice with nightmares about aftershocks (there was one actual significant 3.2 aftershock at around 5:45 a.m., but no noise and I didn't wake up from it, then several smaller ones which were imperceptible in the 1's), but managed to sleep most of the time until 7 to get up for our flight home.

Tracy said on FB that she would have packed her bags and I was so brave to stay. Ha! Thank goodness we were heading out this morning anyway, because that's as much pure panic as I can stand for one decade.

LOVED our second trip ever to the Bay Area though! I will have pics and the rundown later!