Earthquake Update – everyone is okay, buildings are a mess.

Twin Oaks was nearly the epicenter of a 5.9 quake.  I have lived in San Francisco and Santa Cruz for almost 10 years and this was the wildest ride i have had.  The community rallies in these types of circumstances.  We form effective little committees, the first of which went around and made sure all the members were accounted for and that everyone was okay.  There are no serious injuries. Kristen got hit by a door and will likely have a black eye. Louisa‘s foot got hit and she was icing it when i left.

Other groups went and assessed building damage, we cut off power to avoid fire hazards and to stop pumps from flooding (downstairs Onedia and Nashoba have both sustained plumbing damage).  MT and ZK have sustained damage to their floors and MT has a number of things which came crashing down from the walls.

I was in Ta Chai when it hit and a 55 gallon fishtank came smashing down beside me and nearly hit me, i was soaked and the fish are casualties.  We had to climb out of the wing over broken glass and crashed equipment and falling bookshelves.  Some chimneys appear slightly tilted, it is not yet clear if there is much structural damage.

Of course we are located about a dozen miles from the North Anna nuclear power plant.  The plant was manually shut down when external power failed.  There are emergency generators currently powering the plant which provide needed cooling for the radioactive materials at the facility.  The plant is claiming that there was no damage, but they cant actually have completed an inspection yet, so they are simply lying to us – as they did at Chernobyl and Fukushima.  The plant was designed for a 5.9 to 6.1 earthquake.  So we were lucky (tho of course we could just as easily say we were foolish fro building them in the first place).

Denny Ray’s place got flooded and we keep offering him help and he keeps declining.  Jim and Shana are okay, tho they took some damage to their plumbing.  We are checking on other friends in the area, which requires driving to them, because the phone service is largely out.