the adventure begins

my company was nice enough to schedule an event in dc (without my input) shortly after i started. of course, i couldn't pass up the opportunity to have my employer pay for a plane ticket home. so, while i will be working for the remainder of the week (albeit on the east coast, rather than the west), i am taking all of next week off to do some playing!

my officemate and friend, alison, and i headed to the long beach airport this morning, leaving irvine at about 8:30am for our 11am flight. traffic is always hit or miss, and we both prefer erring on the side of caution.

when we arrived and checked in, we were told that our flight would be delayed, as the incoming flight was late. so we were looking at noon.

the long beach airport is a tiny little airport, and the 'waiting area' is largely outside. it was a beautiful morning, and we enjoyed it until shortly after 11 when we headed to our gate. the 'gate' was a glorified shack, but we found seating and passed the time calmly...for a short while.

the calm before the storm

about 20 minutes after we sat down. the shack began to shake. and it was a good shake. alison thought a plane had hit the building, but i knew immediately that it was a quake. this is my second since moving to ca, but this far bigger than the first.

the initial quake lasted just a few seconds, but the building was left swaying for a few minutes. so surreal to have the ground moving under your feet, and truth be told, oddly amusing. like a weird amusement park ride.

alison was pretty freaked out, which surprises me coming from a native californian, but in general, no one was panicking. there was no running, no doorway standing. just some question marked faces and mild concern.

and within 15 minutes the preboarding began.

we had just sat down in our seats and gotten settled when alison looked passed me out the window and asked 'what's that?' there was a waterfall of clear liquid coming from the wing. 'oh,' i replied flippantly, 'it's just the gas. we don't need it.'

about 60 seconds later the flight attendant came over the pa and said 'get up.'

the entire plane stared at this flight attendant thinking that we were not in the mood for a stretch, or for a joke of any kind.

and then he repeated it. 'get up. get out of this plane. leave your bags. proceed calmly. get off!' and we were all unceremoniously--yet calmly, per his instructions--shuffled off the plane and back into the gate waiting area.

that was when my one 'moment of panic' came. i started wondering if maybe this earthquake had been bigger than i realized. was there a large tremor coming our way? where had it started? and holy cow, there are people in this area that i love, and are they okay?

to make matters worse, no one could get calls out. we knew nothing, other than that the evac, as it had turned out, was related to a fuel spill, not the quake.

turns out that waterfall WAS the gas. but we did kind of need it. and while we waited for the fire department and the hazmat teams to arrive and assess the scene, there were a few moments where all of us sitting in that waiting area were in the dark.

i can only imagine how terrifying it must be and have been for those involved in serious natural disasters. katrina comes immediately to mind. not having any sense of what is happening in the world around you is isolating and frightening.

my first contact with the outside world was a text message from deb in new york asking me if i was okay, which frankly, did not help. if deb, in NEW friggin YORK, knew about this little shake, how bad was it?


fortunately the answer was not long in coming. i was able to get a hold of jenny to get more details and determine that everyone was safe and sound.

a 5.4 with over 50 aftershocks reported. epicenter, chino hills, about 30 miles from where i sat in long beach.

but, in the grand scheme of things, even with the extra drama of the unrelated evac, i was fortunate in that all was resolved quickly.

the hazmat team cleared the plane, and we reboarded (much to alison's chagrin). she was convinced that all of this was a sign that we were not supposed to go to dc on this plane. taking a less 'world's end' approach, i simply surmised that perhaps in the cosmic scheme of things, there was a need for the delay. i was confident that my fellow travelers would not trample me on their way out the door if something else were to happen. quite impressive actually, how that group responded to the uncertainty of the words 'get off the plane.' and frankly, i'd rather get back on the plane that has just been cleared by every imaginable safety inspector than one that hasn't been checked in three legs!

and only two hours later than originally planned, we safely arrived at dulles.

this is already turning out to be one interesting trip!