I got an email from one of my colleagues letting our workgroup in Tampa know that the folks in our New York City office just felt an earthquake. He found an article about the earthquake in Virginia it immediately and attached it.
It struck me as a bit odd that he felt the need to tell us. But later, I saw Seth Godin’s blog post and it made more sense. He says:
1. The first thing that happens after we encounter an earthquake is to wonder if anyone else felt it. The need for group validation is widespread and happens for events that don’t involve earthquakes as well.
If those in the tribe feel something, we’re likely to as well. That’s why people look around before they stand up to offer an ovation at the end of a concert. Why should it matter if any of these strangers felt the way you did about the event? Because it does. A lot. Social proof matters.
As a native Ohioan, I remember when I moved to La Jolla, California in the late ’80s I was unaccustomed to earthquakes and they scared me. I went about making earthquake plans and preparations for me and my family to have supplies and to know what to do if we were separated when “the big one” happened. I quickly became an expert in earthquake preparation. I found it made me feel better to do something proactive than to wait around. Californians were strangely nonchalant about the whole thing. But Seth points out that I’m not alone in wanting to take action in the face of such an event:
2. Organizations are busy evacuating buildings, even national monuments. Even though experience indicates that the most dangerous thing you can do is have tens of thousands of people run down the stairs, cram into the elevators and stand in the streets, we do it anyway. Why? Because people like to do something. Action, even ineffective action, is something societies seek out during times of uncertainty.
Oddly enough, my first California earthquake happened early in the morning about a month after I moved to La Jolla. It was over in seconds, but it seemed to last a long time. My then 4-year-old son called out to me that his stuffed polar bear, PB, had flown off his bed. My waterbed (remember those?) was rocking and rolling so much that I thought my Labrador Retriever, Buster Brown, had jumped on it. I had time to get to the door frame and yell to my son to do the same (that’s what we had been told to do). The house seemed to sway and roll. And then it was over.
But I never again was able to fully trust the ground to be firm nor to shake the nervousness about the next one coming at any time without warning.
How about you? Did you feel the earth move today? Did you feel the urge to connect with someone about it? I sure did!
8/24/11
Interesting update on our animal friends in DC:
From an article by Joel Achenbach at the Washington Post on the earthquake in Washington–
The first warnings of the earthquake may have occurred at the National Zoo, where officials said some animals seemed to feel it coming before people did. The red ruffed lemurs began “alarm calling” a full 15 minutes before the quake hit, zoo spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson said. In the Great Ape House, Iris, an orangutan, let out a guttural holler 10 seconds before keepers felt the quake. The flamingos huddled together in the water seconds before people felt the rumbling. The rheas got excited. And the hooded mergansers — a kind of duck — dashed for the safety of the water.
I’m not sure if a warning 15 minutes ahead of time would have helped people feel less unnerved…but I guess it couldn’t hurt if we had more awareness of the “6th sense” that animals have about these kinds of events. I know I appreciate getting a warning about hurricanes where I live now in Tampa, Florida so I can get prepared. It’s a lot better than the extreme shock of the earth rolling and shaking all of a sudden.
