@catsalad I was very near the epicenter of the Virginia earthquake of 2011. I thought someone was jackhammering outside. I looked out the window and didn’t see any construction equipment and was confused. The shaking went on for thirty seconds and I don’t think it occurred to me it was an earthquake until my father said so, because they were completely outside my threat model and it felt so much like what you’d expect from a very close-by artificial cause of shaking.

before I was born, my mother was in a bigger one, and her first thought was that a train had derailed and hit the building.