I was living in Campbell in an apartment complex called Union Manor. My sister and I had accompanied my mother to the complex’s laundromat when it hit, I was six years old and my sister was two. I remember sitting on the dryer and next thing I knew my mom had pulled me off hurriedly and rushed my sister and I to the doorway of the structure. As I watched the shaking from the doorway I saw a cat run so fast I don’t even think his feet were touching the ground, and in that moment I remember thinking how scary it must be for a cat: Not knowing what is going on but that everything is shaking violently. It seemed like it lasted a really long time and when it was over my mom gathered us up, left her clothes, and in a kind of orderly chaos took us back to our apartment. There were large cracks in the ceiling, the fridge had tipped over and everything had fallen out of the cupboards. She grabbed some emergency supplies and for the next six hours we sat in the covered car port with everyone from our complex, which was safer than the units, to wait out all the aftershocks.
By Kristina Crooks
