At 9:06 AM October 13th, I was sitting at my home office desk on the phone with an associate. Suddenly, the entire house (including the floor) shook! An earthquake! The United States Geological Survey was quick to post the epicenter located near Norman, Oklahoma, home to the OU Sooner football team:
The International Headquarters of Servias Ministries had just experienced a major earthquake, 5.1 on the Richter Scale. Was this the end? This isn’t California, ya know. Should I run outside before aftershocks arrive? Do I have enough food and water stored for such an event? Now where did I place that emergency plan?
My assistant who works about 4 miles northwest of me immediately called to check the damage. Her dogs were pacing and whining. Uh oh! Suddenly, I couldn’t focus on the business at hand. Was I in shock? My wife (conveniently out of town… did she know what was coming and failed to alert me) called to check on me. I wonder why she asked about the status of my life insurance policy?
What about the headquarters infrastructure damage? Was my electricity still on? Check. Was my server farm still operational? Check. Telecommunications? Check.
What will be the economic impact of this quake with such a fragile economy? Only time will tell. Damage assessments are already being reported by various state and local agencies.
Whew! It looks like we dodged a bullet! Below is a picture of the devastation near the epicenter of the “Quake of 2010”:
By the way, even though the local Oklahoma Geological Survey originally measured the quake at 5.1, the USGS subsequently downgraded it to a 4.3 but we still made “the list”. See http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/quakes_big.php