By now, you encountered the curious looks of people on the street, cell phones stuck to there ears (later found out they were likely trying to get through to their loved ones since many phone lines were down after the incident.
All of this began when at about 1:45PM in Toronto, I felt the building start to shake a bit. Is it weird that I was... ahem... in the bathroom at the time... Yes ok it's really weird. But I also kind of froze. First thought in my mind was not earthquake. I'm very close to all the increased protection of the G20 fence and initially thought it might be Obama's helicopters. I had seen these massive steel walled fortresses of the sky get dropped off in Toronto the day before. I imagined they'd create a lot of noise and maybe even strong winds.
Next I thought... strong wind. But I was frozen in place. And then I literally felt like my building was swaying with increased intensity back and forth. My 3rd thought was that if the building feel down or broke apart or something weird and crazy like that... it would be less than funny in the position I was in(meanwhile this is all happening in what 15 seconds... I think FAST!)
I thought for a second about it being an Earthquake but figured we didn't have those in Toronto! I wanted to get up rush to a window and see if anyone else was feeling this and also see if it was a helicopter or something. But naturally, as soon as I was decent, it was all over. Most buildings had been evacuated, and as I got downstairs I found most people there seemed panicked and many had initially thought it was some kind of a bomb (likely because of our precarious location).
Unfortunately, due to my location at the time, I did not have my phone or access to Twitter. But those who did quickly updated the masses about it having been an Earthquake that was being reported by ppl on Twitter down to Buffalo and up to Ottawa and Montreal with the epicentre closer to the Ottawa/Quebec border!
I am more and more in love with Twitter as this amazing tool grows and reaches more people. Before any kind of news outlet gives a report, people do. And they give the first hand account. News outlets will also use twitter to confirm where they are hearing ppl felt the quake, and when the full report actually comes out online (usually 5 minutes later or so) it is not uncommon for it to include various Tweets that broke the news.
YouTube has also been amazing. Minutes after the quake videos surfaces of people filming their homes quake or the buildings around them wiggle. Some videos showed the entire quake and initial reactions to it, because the user was taping something else when the quake hit.
Social media has been the wave of the future for a while now, but it's in times like these that we truly see the power of the people and how our interactions with these networks will change the way we live our lives.
Maybe this even means checking Twitter to make sure it's in fact an earthquake, before seeking shelter. But if those social media glasses ever come out/catch on (HA!) checking first might not actually delay you much!
