I experienced my first earthquake last year. It was only a 5.0 but it was startling! I thought at first it was a really heavy truck rattling down the highway behind our house. But it continued..the dog was barking too. I grabbed my daughter (who was frightened) and we stood in a stairway. My husband came and joined us. It was over in about a minute or two. Fortunately, we didn't have any damage to our house. We were about 50 miles away from the epicenter. I live on the east coast in Virginia so we don't get a lot of earthquakes. There have been only 2 that I know of in the last 50 years. The other 2 I didn't even feel.