The Great Snowflake Quake! Flights grounded... Biden on standby... and 17 silly ... trends now
Where were you during the Great Snowflake Quake?
11.02 am and my iPhone started hurriedly vibrating, emitting a deeply offensive screech, the word 'EMERGENCY' shouting in bold typeface.
Apparently, there'd been an earthquake in the tri-state area (magnitude 4.8).
'REMAIN INDOORS,' the alert implored, nearly 40 minutes after the quake struck.
It's worth noting magnitudes are not even considered 'moderate' until they reach around 5.3. But no matter – wipe away that hangover, pull on your panic boots, the weekend can wait.
Deaths or injuries: zero. Serious damage to property: none. Hysterical frenzy: MAXIMUM.
Scramble the fighter jets, hold the front page, President Biden had been 'briefed' of the incident, we learned.
Then came the cable news calamity.
11.02 am and my iPhone started hurriedly vibrating, emitting a deeply offensive screech, the word 'EMERGENCY' shouting in bold typeface. Apparently, there'd been an earthquake in the tri-state area (magnitude 4.8).
Fox News's weather girl informed us in her best crisis voice that this rumble was the biggest the East coast had seen since 1884. 'So, before any of us were really alive to feel that,' she said, sounding uncertain.
Cut to DIY footage from a Richard Snyder of Pennsylvania yelping 'Holy f***, Holy f***' as his house seemed to, well, not move at all.
On CNN, reporter Andrew Kaczynski was phoning in to describe the 'crazy' happenings. 'I thought I was going nuts,' he said. 'A mirror was shaking, you know.'
No, Andrew, we don't – tell us more!
Channeling her inner President Zelensky, Governor Kathy Hochul put on war fatigues to hold the first presser.
'We are taking this extremely seriously,' she said. 'There is always the possibilities of aftershocks!'
Oh Kathy, please, I can't bear it. Tell us if Taylor Swift survived!
My email pinged. It was my mom, who lives in London, checking to see I was OK, to which I said thank you, because not many people have asked if I'm OK.
Oh no, wait. That was Meghan Markle on that Tom Bradby interview.
Meanwhile, trains were halted in Philadelphia, almost 100 miles from the epicenter. Flights were grounded for hours at NYC's international airports. But where-oh-where was Mayor Eric Adams?
He was hard to pick out among the panoply of City Hall bods, forced out of their pajamas for the second press conference.
I counted at least 17 of them, including, of course, the head of the sanitation department.
Adams reminded a city that survived 9/11 that 'we are ready for the unexpected', but should you feel any further shocks, 'drop to the floor, cover your head and neck, take
