This morning, at 4:40 am, give or take a minute, we were woken up by a gentle shaking of our bed. I almost dismissed it as part of a dream or something, but then my wife said, "What is that noise?"

"What noise?" I said, sitting up and listening. Metallic rattling coming from above us. Also something that sounded like a faucet dripping.

"What's goin on?" she asked.

"I think it's an earthquake," I said. I got out of bed, could still feel the slight shaking. Then the rattling lessened. Only the dripping sound was happening. Turned out to be the door of the master bathroom bouncing off its doorstop.

We went back to sleep as that sound (and the bouncing of the door) stopped, and so did the tremors. I said, "We'll have to see what they say on the news, if there was an earthquake."

Cut to 6 am. My wife gets up because we gotta get the kids off to school. I sleep for about 10 more minutes, waking up from a weird dream. My son is there. "Hi daddy," he says. I tell him about the earthquake, while I'm turning on the TV for the ABC7 news. He's all excited!

Sure enough, it's the only thing they're talking about. First reports are of a 5.4 magnitude earthquake 230 miles south of Chicago, epicenter near West Salem, Illinois. Later they downgrade that to 5.2 magnitude. They don't have much news from downstate, though later they get some reports from St. Louis, a bridge being closed over the Mississippi. Doesn't look like much damage. Then some pictures from Louisville Kentucky, where it looks like maybe part of a building came down.

I'm at work now, and haven't heard much additional news about the extent of the damage downstate. I'd guess it isn't terribly extensive. But I've never FELT an earthquake before. I've either slept through them or they weren't distinctive enough to actually register. And maybe it's because our bedroom is upstairs at our two story home, because no one I've talked to this morning felt it at all. But we certainly did.

It's sort of scary, even at the very slight level that we experienced it. The New Madrid fault is apparently overdue for a big quake. That centers in Missouri, even further from Chicago, but we are near the northern extent of the fault, if I recall the maps correctly. I hope I never experience a really BIG one...

Makes me feel for those in California...