it's just MAYHEM!!!

So, there was an earthquake in Rochester yesterday.  Epicenter was 40 miles north of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, magnitude 5.0.  But apparently it shook the entire northeast all the way to Buffalo.  Nope, I didn't feel it in Buffalo in my office - although apparently the person sitting next to me did. No one I know in Rochester felt it either.  But, there were immediately 80 calls to 911 within 2 minutes after it hit.  Not to report any damage or anything like that, because there was no damage. The calls were to ask "was there just an earthquake?" or to tell 911 "we just had an earthquake".  Now, what did any one of those 80 people expect the 911 operators to do for them? Mind you, this is the same town where someone called 911 because their order from Popeyes chicken was incorrect.  

On top of the 80 brain surgeons who think that calling 911 to report an earthquake is a good idea (I mean really, the people trying to get through to report heart attacks and such can just wait), there were HUNDREDS of media whores who sent in video to the local tv stations of the cracks in their driveways.  Most of the cracks were there before the great shaking of the earth, but apparently the jiggling made them bigger.  So it's news worthy. And the reports of "well, I didn't really feel it but my glass of water jiggled a little bit" was also worth sending into the news stations.  The worst part is that the news stations ENCOURAGE this crap. All the news websites had links to "where were you during the earthquake? Send us your videos and stories".  Oh please do NOT encourage these people! But the absolute best part was when there were tv news crews at the tallest building downtown (a whopping 36 stories high) accosting people as they came out at the end of the day with the stimulating questions of "did you feel the building shake?"  "what did you think was happening?" "did you feel that you were in danger?"  "did you think the building would fall?" OH MY GOD.  No wonder I hate the evening news.  

And after all that excitement, my NOAA weather radio goes nuts with tornado warnings for every county in western New York EXCEPT the one where I live.  Because Rochester, being around the 4th largest city in New York State, is too small to have it's own NOAA station so all of our weather has to come out of the Buffalo station.  On a different lake.  With totally different weather patterns. So the government, in it's infinite wisdom, combined the weather stations.  So now my NOAA emergency radio is going nuts for weather that has nothing to do with where I live.  But apparently the people who live in Rochester don't realize that they don't live in Buffalo so there was the freakout on the weather blogs about tornadoes.  It must be the heat killing off perfectly good brain cells in the masses.  Or maybe the Great Quake of 2010 shook the earth so violently that their brains all sloshed around in their heads leading to massive brain damage.