At 6:16 AM Alaska Time, a 5.8 Magnitude Earthquake occurred centered in the Cook Inlet near Anchor Point (approximately 110 miles from Anchorage).  There is no reports of injuries, and the Anchorage Daily News Facebook suggests the worst damage was a few perfume bottles that fell off a shelf.  5.8 is still an impressive earthquake, the size that only happens once or twice a year.

For those of you who don’t know, Alaska is the most earthquake active state in the USA.  We average annually 24,000 earthquakes — that’s as much as 100 earthquakes a day.  Most are below a magnitude 2, and because Alaska is so big and earthquakes can be deep below the surface sometimes we won’t even feel those who break magnitude 4.

In all honesty, I think its even harder to feel it at my house.  The first two decent earthquakes I was in when I moved here were at work – once when I was on the 9th floor of a building, another when I was on the 8th floor, and buildings that big are built to sway (but not break) in an earthquake, and you don’t miss that.  My little single story house doesn’t sway period.  Plus I must live in a part of town where the effect of quakes are reduced.  Those in parts of town that were damaged hard during the big quake probably still feel it good too.  Most of the time when a big number happen and I am at home, I don’t know about it until I hear from others.

But I felt this one.

I finished up a two day bender watching the NFL draft last night around midnight, and since the pup had been locked up in his kennel for most of that I let him sleep with me … on the recliner … watching Aussie Rules Football.  I woke up around 6am, but feeling a bit tired and hung over, and found Auggie up as well, staring back at me from atop my tummy.  I was hoping he didn’t have an immediate need to go to the bathroom, because I was more than happy to lie there and scratch behind his ears until one or both of us fall back to sleep.  Just before the cute fuzzball was getting ready to settle, he popped up and jerked at the ready towards something in the kitchen, first thinking he saw his arch enemy … the laundry basket.  There was a bit of a shimmy in the recliner, but I first thought it was from my “guard dog”.  Then behind me I heard my door rattle and a table shake.  The pup turned towards that and started growling pretty hard.  So I was like … Huh … I bet that was an earthquake.

Confirmation comes like anything does these days.  Facebook.  Anchoragites filling their timeline with “did you feel that?”  posts.  Not me though .. I mentioned that I was hungover right?  I just went back to sleep and let the world shake on without me.