I was sitting in my office an hour ago when my pictures begin to fall off the walls. It was a rare earthquake in D.C. and it was pretty exciting. I am told that it was a 5.9 quake. Of course, this could lead to Georgetown law reporting their quake as 6.0 and our revising our figures accordingly.

The epicenter was in Mineral, Virginia. The quake was four miles deep. Of course, I tried to tape students around me for my protection from flying debris but few would stand still long enough — ungrateful imps.

Everyone was evacuated outside into the quad so I decided to go home to work. I didn’t get far. In perhaps the stupiest possible move, the State Department closed off 21st street — presumably to allow its own people to evacuate. However, they kept it closed causing a bottleneck of cars. If this were a serious emergency with aftershocks, they would have created bumper to bumper traffic while the closed street remained virtually clear of people and cars.