Around The World In 72 Days - Earthquake Special Post-Morten

Following the time honored principle of shutting the barn door after the horse has escaped (or as we say in our family buying the purple candles*), we have over the two days since the earthquake been doing a lot of reading about what one should do in these situations. 

*This refers to a terrible ice storm we experienced when first married that left us without power for days on end in the middle the winter. My younger brother who was in the same area at the time, gifted us with a HUGE box of purple candles to take care of us should this happen again. Said box followed us for the next two decades before finally we realized they had melted into an unusable mass.

I happy to report that the four of us, Wife, 2.2, 2.3 and myself, did virtually NOTHING correct. 

• We should have gotten under a table or bed. We did not.
• We should not have braced ourselves in a doorway. We did.
• We should have stayed in bed covering our neck and head with a pillow. We did not.
• We should have gotten away from a area of potential glass falling. We did not.

I am also dismayed to report that the literature is sadly lacking on what to do when one finds oneself on a toilet doing one's business when the earthquake hits. The two grandchildren, in the way of teenagers, have made quite a few jokes on what the emergency rescuers would be saying as they found my carcass in the rubble on the toilet. 

Lastly, I will report that while we had the bad luck of being in Taiwan for the worst earthquake in 25 years, we had the good luck of it being Taiwan. For it turns out that Taiwan (responding to past disasters) has become the world's leader in earthquake related building codes, retrofitting, infrastructure design, and emergency response. If one was going to have to experience, this is the place to do so. 

Wife and I have decided that we can check this experience off our travel 'to do' list for keeps.