Is the Wednesday edition of the Morning Jolt on less solid ground than usual?
I Felt the Earth . . . Move . . . Under My Feet
I’m sure you know where you were. I was sitting in a bookstore café when my cup started doing the increasing water-ripples bit from Jurassic Park.
Suddenly where I was sitting became shakier than Joe Biden’s grasp on when it’s appropriate to drop an F-bomb. Shakier than Qaddafi’s control of Libya. Shakier than your 401(k)’s performance in the past month. Shakier than Nancy Pelosi’s command of the finer details of the legislation she passes. Shakier than Shakira’s hind quarters. Shakier than a Red Bull-drinking Chihuahua with Parkinson’s playing Operation on a Tilt-a-Whirl. Shakier than my judgment to begin this morning’s Jolt with a seemingly endless list of similes.
Thankfully, it looks like everything turned out not too bad: “It was an afternoon rumble that many Californians might have laughed off as the stuff of high-strung East Coasters. But millions of Americans from Georgia to Canada were jolted Tuesday by the most powerful earthquakes to hit the region in decades. While the quake caused no major damage, reported deaths or major injuries, millions of workers evacuated buildings or were sent home early, sparking titanic traffic jams hours before the usual commutes. The earthquake, which hit at 1:51 p.m. ET, measured 5.8 according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The size of the quake, said Brown University seismologist Karen Fischer in a seismic understatement, was ‘very unusual’ for the East Coast. There were only scattered reports of damage to homes and commercial buildings, including falling masonry at Washington’s National Cathedral. The National Park Service used a helicopter to look for potential damage to the 555-foot tall Washington Monument.”
Here’s something fascinating, from the Washington Post: “At the National Zoo, some of the animals — lemurs and gorillas — sensed the quake before it struck, and called out warnings, while howler monkeys howled and a komodo dragon ran for cover once it happened.”
Also, a bit of news that seems all-too-illustrative of the flaws of our giant bureaucracy: “Employees fled the U.S. Capitol, and House and Senate office buildings were evacuated, as tremors shook the buildings for several seconds. Many of those buildings were declared safe a few hours later. Several staffers said they received the official evacuation notice on their Blackberrys an hour and a half after the quake, long after they had fled the building on their own. Most members of Congress were back in their home districts for the August recess and were not present at the Capitol on Tuesday.”
And here’s an interesting wrinkle: “Engineers were working to make sure the Washington Monument survived the earthquake. Park officials said the top of the 555-foot-tall stone obelisk appears to have cracks, and it would remain closed pending a top-to-bottom inspection.”
William Jacobson, who blogs at Legal Insurrection, thinks we haven’t heard the last about this: “Insert into next #Obama speech: “. . . from Tsunami, Arab Spring, European headwinds, . . . DC #earthquake.”
Please don’t find fault with my similes.