My wife and I woke up in mid air, rotated 180 degrees from the position we had gone to sleep in. (Went to bed with our heads pointing to the East.) We watched the ceiling grow nearer and then recede some 6 times. The sound of the house creaking and glass breaking was deafining. The silence and dark that followed were equally deafining. We exited the house out the back door and were greeted by the most dark and starry sky I have seen in many years. Back into the house, got keys to the front door. Back out and around to the front, into the house and to my youngest daughter's room. She was incredulous that we were waking her up in such a hurried manner. Yes, she slept right through it. Needless to say, the kitchen was trashed. The oven on a north wall jumped out onto the floor. The refrigerator on the same wall had opened up and tilted to the south. There it sat, half tipped over, its opened doors dug into the floor allowing all the contents to mix thourolly with all the broken glass from the opposite wall cupboards.

As a teacher I had been warned to get all the material stored on top of my classroom cabinets off just in case. ALL material on top of cabinets remained there while All contents inside burst through the doors and was spread all over the room. That, needless to say did not sit well with my principal. We still laugh about it today.

It is very simple to be ready if you believe that eternal preparidness is the price of survival. You will have to pardon me now while I now go and practice what I just said! Oh, and have one of these new small video cameras ready, my insurance man said I was the first person to have photographic proof of all the damage.
Be safe!!

Bob in Woodland Hills