Living
in California the first twenty years of my life I was familiar with various
degrees of earthquakes. I had always heard
about them the day after when someone else would ask, “Did you feel that earthquake
last night?” I don’t know why, but it never woke me from my sound sleep.
The
first earthquake I ever actually felt,
however, was in the Philippines. My husband, Ron, was stationed there for a
short seven months and during our return to the states we had an overnight stay
at Clark Air Force Base. There were no accommodations other than a hospital
ward so the men were separated from the women. Ron went to his ward and our two
children stayed with me. Kristen was six at the time and Russell was five weeks
old.
We
were all exhausted by the time we got settled in and fell asleep. I knew we had
many more hours ahead of us before we landed on the west coast so I forced
myself to sleep as soundly as I could until Russ would wake me for a feeding. In
the wee hours of the morning something shook me awake. I frantically opened my
eyes in time to see the light swaying overhead. I looked down at Russ who was sound
asleep. I glanced over at Kristen sitting up in bed with a look of complete
bewilderment on her face. I scooped up Russ and grabbed Kristen’s hand and off we
ran. I had no idea how to even get out of the building so we just followed
the mass of humans fleeing ahead of us.
Dawn
was just beginning to creep in to divulge the sight. It was almost amusing to
see everyone standing outside in their pajamas, a long line silently circling
the building, looking back where we had just felt secure in our beds. Ron found
us in the crowd and I assured him that we were all fine. It seemed like we
stood there forever. I don’t know what was going through anyone else’s mind,
but I was waiting for the building to collapse.
My
memory banks were replaying all the scenes I had ever viewed of the 1906
earthquake in San Francisco. I did not
want to enter that building again. Eventually the “all clear” was given and we
were told it was safe to return to our ward. Well, I did return but I did not
sleep soundly.
As
we readied ourselves the next morning to continue our flight on to the states,
I gladly said goodbye to the Philippines and hello to San Francisco . . . where
they have only small earthquakes . . . ha, ha!
Manila, Philippines earthquake on March 18, 1977 was a magnitude 7.0
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