richter encounter

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2006/10/16/MNG7FLQ5OF1.DTL&o=0

Sunday morning, Steph and I were staying at her dads house in Waimea, and we were very rudely awakened at 7 am by violent shaking. (I was bouncing around on the bed so much that about half the time I wasnt actually touching the part of the bed that was Under me!) We jumped to the doorway and waited (almost 60 seconds) for the shaking to stop. To wake up from a drowsy sleep to that kind of situation is, well, shocking. (major understatement) You kind of take it for granted that the ground is the most stable thing around, and years of life have proven that to you. It definitly doesn't feel like reality when you wake up and thats just the opposite. I completely understand why people say they feel like they are going to fall through the earth when they are standing outside. Very Freaky.
Any way, It shook lots of stuff off shelves, off walls, out of cupboards, etc. Made a general big mess. one of the pictures shows some kitchen or something. Very good picture. Electricity was out. On our drive back into Hilo, we crossed under fallen power lines draped over other power lines, and had to find another route (add 2 hours) when one of the bridges was missing one of it's 2 lanes. Lots of large fallen boulders and debris along the road.
Hilo was for the most part fine. As you may have heard, it was felt across all the large islands, which is a significant distance. We were probably only about 30 miles from the epicenter. We felt probably a dozen of the aftershocks, the first being a 5.8 and the second was a 4 something, so they both shook us up a bit too.
anyway, this is getting too long, and you've probably heard all about it already. Almost all of the pictures at that link are from right around here, areas and buildings we know or even drove by yesterday.