by John Cargile

Created on: April 19, 2008   Last Updated: April 20, 2008

The April 18, 2008 earthquake in southern Illinois certainly got my attention.
I was sitting at my computer last Friday morning and, at approximately 4:40 a.m., I felt a small jolt. My head was resting on the back of my high-back chair when the stirring occurred. "What was that!" I thought.
Being that I had been suffering through a cold and allergies and taking allergy medication, I thought it might have been some type of reaction to the medicine. I felt a little dizzy.

Shuffling into the den to the television, I tuned in to national news. I found out an earthquake had just shaken people in southern Illinois, around West Salem.
Could I have felt a tremor from this earthquake in Coker, Alabama in Tuscaloosa County?

Who can I call?
At this time in the morning the local Emergency Management Agency would be closed. Do I dial 9-1-1? Do I call the sheriff's office? I was trying to reassure myself that what I experienced was experienced by someone other than me so I wouldn't need to call my local physician to see if something was going on inside this brain of mine.
I told a friend what happened, and she listened. She didn't feel the tremor and she, too, was up during that few seconds.
By now I am feeling a little panicky. Later in the morning I decided to call the University of Alabama's geological department. I spoke to the secretary and she said she heard some other people felt the tremor as well. I began to feel less anxious.

I called the news department at a Birmingham television station and spoke to one of the editors. She said she had received several calls about the tremor. She asked me if they could send a local cameraman to my house for a formal interview.
I begged off on the interview. The image of interviews the television stations portray after a local disaster filed into my brain. Most of the time people who live in a mobile home are interviewed in our area after a tornado. The image of seeing myself on TV did not fascinate me.

"It sounded like a train! Kaboom!" ran through my mind of a rural family struggling to describe what happened to them. I didn't want to look like some small town hick with no teeth and tobacco juice running down the side of their mouth.
I felt a little better as the day wore on. At least, I wasn't going crazy.

When I regained my senses, I decided to email a friend - Don Hartley, an executive with the local Emergency Management Agency. I explained what happened on Friday morning last. This was the third Friday in a row some type

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