We had ourselves an earthquake and a dust storm alert!

I awoke yesterday morning about 5 a.m.  The minute the sky starts to lighten up, BOING!  My eyes are open.  I fed the cats, fed the dogs, fed the birds, took a short walk with my camera to photograph the beautiful pink and orange clouds at sunrise, and started to blog.

Anyway, after doing some chores, about 10 a.m. hubby and I were sitting in our chairs in our living room and RUMBLE, RUMBLE...I heard it first.  Then we both felt a fairly large jolt.  Now, I'm a native Californian.  I've lived with earthquakes for 62 years.  This was quite noticeable.  The house shook.  Our chairs moved.

We both got online and the USGS showed it was a 4.8 (later downgraded to a 4.6) in Big Bear, in our nearby San Bernardino mountains. Actually, for those of you who are familiar with the area, it was centered in Running Springs.  It was 8 miles deep and I looked at the USGS website where they said to the core of the earth is 3,959 miles.  As earthquakes go, it wasn't that deep.  But, BOY!  We sure heard and felt it.  And, a 4.6 is usually not that noticeable.  Had I been outside working, I probably wouldn't have even noticed it.  But, we were both SITTING in our chairs INSIDE the house, so we both heard and felt it.  I also felt several aftershocks (all about 2.6 or 2.4) throughout the day, when I was inside.

Here's the link to our local news story about it:   http://www.kesq.com/news/46-earthquake-in-big-bear-shakes-valley/26811800

I, of course, immediately drove out after this and bought 6 gallons of water to keep in the house!

Then, that afternoon, both of our phones went off with an alert for a dust storm down in Imperial.  Well, that's a couple of hours away and we live in a sheltered cove, so I wasn't worried about that!