Leslie was up in Toronto, I had just arrived home that evening from San Francisco.  I had trouble sleeping with the jet lag and an empty house.  But I did manage to nod off around 2am only to be roused by the shaking and the noise at 4:37.

This was not my first rumbler.  In 1993 I was similarly jolted out of bed by a more violent quake.  This one was only a dozen miles away did more bouncing than shaking.  The ’93 quake condemned the main building of my high school and extended my spring break by a few days.  I was too shocked to take in the entire experience of this event.

The Illinois quake had extensive aftershocks, one in particular stands out because I was in the office.  My office is on the fifth floor of and old masonry building.  It started at 10:14 and lasted what seemed like minutes.

During these quakes I was careful to pay attention to everything I could, the noise, the movement of the ground beneath my feet and of the rattling of the buildings.