Although it was after 5pm, I was still at work.  I had a couple of items to finish on the computer and wanted it complete when I quit for the day.  It was only a ten minute drive home so I had plenty of time before the World Series started on TV.

I worked in a large cement warehouse that had large roll up metal doors.   These doors would rattle like mad when the wind blew, which it does quite often in our area.

At first there was a small rattle of the doors, which sounded like someone was knocking to get my attention.   Since it was after 5pm, I ignored it trying to finish.   The door continued to rattle for about a minute or two then it really sounded off like some one was pounding on it.   I finally closed my program and then opened the small side door to look out to see who it was.   There was no one there.   Directly behind the warehouse was my Van, parked only about 15 feet from the building.   To my right, about 100 feet away, I noticed that the college football team was having practice.   They had one of their people on a tower taking a video of the practice.  It was at that time that it hit.  The whole building began to sway.   The top part of the side of the building moved two or three feet in one direction, then back an other two or three feet in the opposite direction.  The building was made entirely of cement and to see things move like that made your stomach want to turn over.   The tower at football practice began to sway and the operator was hanging on for dear life.   I never did find out if he stayed on or fell off, or if the tower fell or not.   It seems that we had ground vibrations for about 2 minutes before the shock wave hit us.

My van was parked up close to the building (about 15 feet) and it was jumping around.   I mean jumping.   It was as if each tire had something under it making them jump individually.   I had never seen a vehicle jump around like that.  The only thing I could think of was to move my Van further away from the building in case it collapsed.

I did just that.   Luckily my van was not locked.   I would never have been able to insert the key.   As it was, the van had twisted about 5 degrees to the left.   Once I got it started, I moved it about thirty feet into the parking lot, and sat there for about 10 minutes until things settled down.   It was a weird feeling to try to drive with the ground moving and swaying back and forth, even for the thirty feet.   It was as if all four wheels were loose causing the van to wabble.   When things settled down, I went back in the warehouse to turn the computer off and lock up the building.   What is odd, is that the warehouse is quite large and I had items on pallets stacked quite high (over 15 feet in some places), and considering the movement of the building, not one item fell.   The stock remained as it had been placed