Earthquake Tremors Felt Near Louisville, Kentucky in April 2008

April 18, 2008. I rolled over to hit the snooze button for the third time when my alarm went off yet again at 5:32 this morning. Groaning, I decided I had better start trying to get myself fully awake, so I pressed the TV remote to turn on the local news. The weather was supposed to be beautiful, sunny and clear today.....Great, I thought. The first few days of nice spring weather Louisville has had all year, and I have to be cooped up at work all day with no windows. I yawned, rolled back over, and debated hitting the snooze button just one more time before getting up to start my day.

Suddenly, my bed started shaking. The windows were rattling, and my ceiling fan looked like it was about to fall. My Papillion dog started barking and growling frantically, jumping off the bed and running around in circles. What in the WORLD is going on, I thought. My immediate thought was that a heavy truck was passing on the road beside my condominium or there must be a really strong wind gust, but when the shaking and rattling didn't stop quickly it finally dawned on me that we must be having an earthquake.

I looked at the television, thinking that if it really was an earthquake, they must be experiencing the same thing. The looks on the faces of the news team let me know that I wasn't the only one affected. The two news anchors and the weather man looked as confused and unsure as I was, trailing off in mid-sentence. By the time I had figured out what was going on and thought that I should probably head downstairs for shelter, the shaking stopped. The entire thing lasted probably about thirty seconds, although it seemed quite a bit longer.

I sat up in bed and called my still-frantic and barking dog back to try to calm her down. The WAVE-3 (Louisville, Kentucky) news team members were laughing nervously and wondering aloud what had just happened. They immediately began checking sources trying to find out any breaking news to relay. Soon, the reports started coming in that we had definitely experienced an earthquake. It was first reported as measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale, but has since been revised to a 5.2. Still huge, in my opinion!