Similar situation here in L.A. We're widely thought to be overdue for the proverbial "Big One."

So in that sense, I can definitely sympathize! Every time I drive under a freeway overpass (or over a freeway underpass, lol) I catch my breath for an instant. In the 1994 earthquake, a portion of the Santa Monica Freeway collapsed - and I had to use another surface street, actually a big, wide boulevard, to get to work downtown every day. It took months to repair. I remember the day after the earthquake, I was running an errand locally and I was pulling up toward a stoplight that was immediately on the other side of a freeway overpass. I was still approaching and on the opposite side of the freeway from the signal. The car in front of me had nobody in front of it, and had plenty of room on the road to be first at the stoplight but he pulled up far short. He did NOT want to drive under the freeway. Not after that earthquake yesterday.

If I wasn't sure that was his motive, I soon had that verified beyond any uncertainty. Another car approached in the lane next to me. It slowed up, too, seeing the red light ahead. The driver in front of me that had stopped on my side of the freeway reached out of his car window and pointed up, at the overpass. The other driver looked up and slowed to a stop alongside the guy in the car in front of me. That whole thing happened in maybe one or two seconds. But it just struck me - such a clear indicator of the way everybody in L.A. felt in the wake of that earthquake. Just trepidation on parade. You noticed it everywhere. Everybody slowed down. Everybody was suddenly a little nicer. A little more patient. Also a little jumpier. But the usual asshole factor dropped WAY down. We'd really been jolted by that quake, and jolted together. And it gnaws at you. Kinda like a low-grade fever. The initial freak-out fades. But you're left with this ongoing unease. For you, xmas74, it's the dreading of an F-4 or F-5 tornado. We grit our teeth about an 8.3-er.

So in that regard - I SOOOoooo sympathize! Your experience just makes for shivers down the spine! Hang in there. I sure hope this isn't a difficult summer for you. I hope things stay uneventful, weather-wise. Seems to me you deserve a big break! Heck, there are quite a few areas of this country that could!