After natural disaster week in North Carolina (no Steve Jobs resignation doesn’t qualify), our state might need to be renamed.

This week alone we had the most powerful earthquake to hit the east coast in about 70 years. A magnitude 5.8 earthquake that was felt from Canada to Georgia. This was followed quickly by Hurricane Irene who is, as I type, beating up the coastal folks like they stole her eye or something. This spring we had a bizarre tornado that traveled hundreds of miles and directly hit downtown Raleigh. That day something like 62 tornadoes touched down in 20 NC counties. From May through June (and maybe into July) we’ve had wildfires that have sometimes clouded up Raleigh skies which were miles from the origin. We’ve had flooding and crazy snowstorms this past winter.

And the icing on the cake warranting this name change, as @mo11ymonkey pointed out, was a rockslide that closed Interstate 40 between NC and TN for months. Didn’t happen this year, and not quite a mudslide, but close.

Therefore, NC, formerly North Carolina, totally deserves it’s new name: New California.

Reelin’ with the feelin’, Movin’ and a-groovin’, Rockin’ and a-rollin’

Speaking of the great east coast earthquake, as an earthquake virgin this was probably the best introduction possible. Well at least for North Carolinians. Totally unexpected, totally unprepared, my coworkers and I didn’t even realize what was happening. Honestly how exciting to feel the earth literally move beneath you and rock everything around you. Although later it felt like the shaking went on for a looong time, the whole event happened so fast there was no time to be scared. The best part was having the experience and not having any devastation. Considering we did everything wrong in response, I’m grateful that it wasn’t a more serious earthquake.