Soldiers, families, residents celebrate surviving earthquake, hurricane

The “I Survived the Hurri-Quake” party, sponsored by Pinnacle Family Communities and the Villages at Belvoir, was Sept. 14 at the George Washington Village pavilion.

The gathering was an opportunity for Soldiers, Families, and post residents and employees to share their thoughts on the earthquake that jostled the region Aug.23 and Hurricane Irene, the tropical cyclone that swept through the area earlier this month.

Attendees spent much of the two-hour event discussing their experiences and feelings when the most dramatic earthquake to strike the Washington metro area in the last century rumbled across the installation, rattling buildings (and nerves) and thoroughly shaking many people’s confidence in terra firma.

“I didn’t think too much about it until it got worse,” said Kim Alesi, community manager of Pinnacle’s Vernondale office. “I had no idea what was happening. At first it sounded like a jet taking off. I know a lot of people from California and they said, ‘Oh, yeah, that was an earthquake.’ I’ve never been there.”

“I was in my office when that rumble started,” said Janelle Carutis, marketing manager for Pinnacle Family Communities. “At first, I thought it was a big truck. But when it got stronger, I kind of knew it was an earthquake and just ran out of my office.”
“I didn’t know what was going on,” said Annelise Kendall, 11. “I thought maybe the dog was running around or something.”

Many on Fort Belvoir didn’t know what was going on that afternoon when that deep rumble began to penetrate the office floor and rattle the windows. With memories of 9/11 still painfully vivid, it was a relief to finally realize that the tremor was, after all, just an earthquake.

The “I Survived the Hurri-Quake” party was an effort to get together people who had shared in the unfamiliar and frightening sensation the earthquake produced - an experience that left most residents of the East Coast fearful of aftershocks and somewhat less confident in the historical inactivity of this part of the earth’s crust.

The earthquake, like Hurricane Irene, made us all think a little bit deeper.

“I just started crying,” said Marlin Aquino, attending the Hurri-Quake party with her son Jeyrick Cruz. “I had my children with me, and they were all I was thinking about.”