Nothing like a 5:31am wake-up call from Mother Nature...

Well it's 6:30am on Saturday and I've been wide awake for an hour now. We just had a 7.0 (the epicenter was about 50 miles away) earthquake at 5:30am. It was really scary and of course, Joe is away on a trip. Fortunatley, it only lasted for maybe like 20 seconds, but it literally felt like forever. I woke up out of a dead sleep to the house shaking so much it felt like it was swaying back and forth (our bedroom is upstairs). The dogs were freaking out and didn't quite know what to do, and honestly I didn't either! I prayed for it to be over, and for nothing serious to happen (flastes of Haiti came to mind).

I thought maybe I was over-reacting and maybe everyone else slept through it (ok, I was trying to convince myself maybe I was imaginging it) but I went on Facebook and literally a few minutes after it happened, over 10 Okinawan friends posted they were awake, felt it, and were scared too. My friend, Susan, called me to check to make sure I was okay since she know Joe was gone. So thankful for good friends to check-in on times like this! I called another friend who is alone and lived right by the seawall to check in on her and let her know of the tsunami warning. I turned on the news and they had it as "breaking news". I'm not sure how I felt about the newscasters reporting that Japan gets earthquakes all the time, as if it wasn't a big deal. Sure we've had a bunch of little ones, but nothing like this!

There is a tsunami warning in effect right now, and they said to prepare for waves up to 6ft high. We have a lot of friends who live right by the water. Hopefully there isn't any strong aftershock. I saw on Facebook quite a few friends who live by the water are evacuating their houses. I guess it's never a bad idea to play it on the safe side.

Anyway, all is well here and thought I'd post in case anyone in the states saw the "breaking news" and was alerted when they heard the words 7.0 earthquake and Okinawa in the same sentence. :)