flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder

Ever been in a skyscraper during an earthquake?
I guess my building is a skyscraper.  Maybe not.  It's only 21 floors.

We tell the new people that there is a company lounge, health club, and pool on 22, which is funnier than it sounds because the elevators only reach to 20 so new people have to walk up the flight of stairs that takes them to 21 and the HR offices and if you accompany them they almost always ask if they are the same stairs that keep going up to the pool.  They don't.  They  just give roof access and no one but maintenance can go up there.

Ever been in a high rise building during an earthquake?

I'm only on the second floor so my first thought was subway disaster.
The subway runs right under my building and every once in awhile the universe collides in a way that puts the Northbound and Southbound and the Express turn-around under me all at once.  And you can sort of kind of hear and feel the tracks rattle.  But this was bigger than that ever was.  Everything shook.  Even our jiggly parts.  I crossed my arms because there are men that sit near me.

My second thought was elevator catastrophe because the back wall of my space is the elevator shaft.
< < shaft!! > >
Then someone mentioned earthquake and someone else laughed and someone else said EARTHquake!?!?! and I got my bag and started to jet. 

That fight or flight or freeze thing?  I'm a flighter.  At the first sign of trouble, I'm out.  I'm never not prepared to run.  That's what a decade in social work will teach you.  Get da fug out.  Wear shoes you can run in or kick off in an instant.

But no one moved. 
I'm a flighter but I'm not a deserter.  Dammit, people.

They just sat there.
So I waited until the freezers warmed up and we all went outside.

I would make a terrible soldier.  I don't deal with authority very well, I need to be in charge of everything- and I hear you have to work hard and wait awhile before they put you in charge of anything more than potatoes or latrines.  I run away from adverse situations.  And I can't leave anyone behind, even if I don't like them so much.  I'd likely be charged with enemy sympathizing or something.  I'm bossy, so I am good at rounding up troops and getting them to do what I think is the right thing to do.  Which is not always the right thing to do, but I've never lost a comrade yet.
I would make an excellent person-to-be-seated-by-the-emergency-exit on a flight going down.  I'm sure of it.

I have this 9-5 safety plan in my head that requires me to travel about 4 blocks south of my office where all the tall buildings end just in case something decides to collapse.  Skyscraper or high rise, I don't want to be underneath it.  But we had to stay on the corner because no one knew what to tell us to do because none of us has an earthquake safety plan and despite the looming buildings and my issues with authority (I'm working on it) I listened and stayed put.  This is Philadelphia.  We don't have natural disasters so we don't prepare much.  Man-made, plenty.  Acts of God?  Apparently God doesn't like to come around here often.  Or she really likes us.

And then it was over and the phones started connecting again and the internet started back up and everything was okay.  It was unnerving for a few minutes.  You couldn't call your people.  You couldn't make sure they were okay.  It was a glimpse into what it must feel like if there is a real emergency.

I have this thing about working far from home.  Unless I'm in the field, I am never more than three miles from my house.  And my child.  I can run three miles at a pretty steady clip, with the help of fear and adrenaline.  Jacob's preschool is within panic distance and his kindergarten is a stone's throw from that and his afterschool program will be where his preschool is.

Seeing people gridlocked after 9-11 scared me.  Scarred me.  Even here in Philadelphia, people couldn't get out to the burbs and outlying areas of the City and phone lines were tied up and there was this sense of helplessness<->hopelessness that spread across the faces of people who didn't know what to do and it scared me.  The adults didn't know what to do.  The police didn't know what to do.  No one knew what to do.  No one could hold their babies.  We were all just stuck.  So I resolved to never work more than three miles from my house when I grew up and got a real job.  And my child once he came along (unless he is in Jersey with my mother-in-law.  Or at my parents'.  Or anywhere else he vacations from time to time).  I try to be within running distance at almost all times.

I guess I have about a baker's dozen more years to hold true to that last part.  I'm guessing that by the time Jake is 18 his emergency plan will be to be as far away from his mother as possible.