Survival! How we lived through Melbourne's largest earthquake

Yesterday, Wednesday 22 September 2021. 9:15am. 

I had just finished an online meeting with New Jersey and was composing an email in my bedroom/office. 

Jonathan was online down the hall in the living room with a friend: they were about to work through an old English test in preparation for their upcoming Victorian examinations. 

Tim, through the wall in his office, was in a meeting with China. 

When the walls began to rumble, I thought it was a large truck parked outside the balcony.

There is a garden outside the balcony, no place for a large truck. I stood up. 

The balcony doors were shaking hard. Definitely no truck. 

Meanwhile, Jonathan back in the living room heard the window behind him start to rattle. 

Helicopter, he thought. 

Tim, through the wall in the office, thought the neighbor's washing machine must be going into overdrive. 

Back in the bedroom/office, I crossed to the window and looked out, feeling everything shake. 

Earthquake?

Surely not an earthquake in Australia.

...

Earthquake!

I opened the door to the hallway and called down to the others.

"What's happening? Earthquake?!"

Jonathan's friend felt it. He left the call. Jonathan came running out of the living room. 

Tim felt it. He paused the call. 

Earthquake!

My computer monitor, on its monitor arm, was bouncing up and down. The doors were rattling hard. And now Jonathan and I were jumping up and down. 

Earthquake!

The shaking stopped.

We burst into Tim's office.

Surely that was an earthquake. He opened a geological website. No earthquake reported.

Jonathan and I went down the hall to my office and opened the local news site. No earthquake reported. 

We checked the local geological website. No earthquake reported. 

We checked Twitter.

"Earthquake!" from Melbourne.

"Earthquake!" from Melbourne.

"Earthquake?" from Sydney! Sydney felt it? Woah!

If they felt it all the way to Sydney, an eight hour drive away, it must have been HUGE!

Tim ended his meeting and came to join us bouncing up and down in my office in excitement. 

That was an earthquake!

Jonathan showed us a picture on his feed of a building nearby that had some bricks knocked off of it. Woah! Bricks knocked down! Like a serious earthquake!

Someone else posted a picture of a knocked-over lawn chair. "We will recover!"

Within a half hour, the geological sites had confirmed an earthquake, magnitude somewhere between 5.8 and 6.0 (they eventually settled on 5.9). In our excitement, we missed the two most notable aftershocks: 4.0 at 9:30am, and 3.0 at 9:55. 

Around 9:50, after 45 minutes of bouncing up and down, I sighed and said I'd better get ready for my next meeting. 

Jonathan sighed and said he'd better go try that practice exam. 

Tim sighed and said he'd better get back to work.

And that was THE END.

Melbourne, a couple of hours after the earthquake. I don't see any damage. Do you?