When you keep thinking something bad is going to happen, it just might. Well, that’s how the saying goes anyway. And people in the Caribbean have definitely had earthquakes on their minds ever since the devastation in Haiti last month.

St Lucia had its very own startling quake in 2007 and it’s something that up until now has a lot of people, including myself, shaken up. Months after the most serious quake that many had ever experienced, the slightest shiver of the earth, no matter the source, sent hearts racing. No surprise that a slight shake up on February 3, 2010 at around 7:26pm local time had everyone who felt it in frenzy mode. Never mind it was nothing compared to Haiti’s big one. The tremor barely lasted five seconds and the magnitude was later determined to be 3.3, with a depth of 23 km. No damage was reported.

But boy, were those five seconds long for some! The earthquake was felt in Gros Islet and Corinth and like many others, I’d gotten home from work shortly before and was settling into a newly acquired Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man by Steve Harvey. When my bedroom started dancing and the fence surrounding my house rattled, I shot out of bed and stood in my doorway puzzled for a brief moment, then panicked. Precious seconds went by as I tried to figure out whether I’d truly felt my room shake. I couldn’t remember where I’d left my house keys. A quick look found them where I always left them, on my dresser.

With trembling hands, I considered that I’d once heard standing in a doorway was one of the safest places to be during an earthquake. After a couple seconds, I thought better of it, grabbed my BlackBerry, (my single most treasured possession) my shoes and bolted to the balcony. My next door neighbour had been on her way home and witnessed me dashing through the front door. She froze mid step, then before anything else laughed her heart out at the sight of me. After a brief, (and necessary) explanation on my part, she told me she hadn’t felt a thing.

Convinced that I could quite possibly me going mad, with still trembling hands I turned to Facebook mobile and posted the question: “Now I could have sworn I felt a tremor, my keys done in my hand, ready to run out the house.” Instantly friends started responding things like, “I thought I was the only one who felt it,” and “I know I ain’t crazy yet.”

Another responded, “you running out of the house and you haven’t dropped the BlackBerry yet!”

Most people hoped what they thought they felt, was really not what they actually felt, and was in a reality, “the tenants downstairs moving furniture,” “the washing machine” or even, “someone walking too hard in the house.” Others said they’d grabbed their pets and were either already out the door or heading outside to look for a wide-open space. And that was the way the news left St Lucia, reaching the world and had people calling their family in St Lucia to make sure everything was okay.

A large number of persons on the island didn’t even feel a thing. After initial panic faded, everyone could laugh about it—for the time being. At the time, it was the furthest thing from humorous.

One of the comments that stood out on Facebook, “No you didn’t feel anything. No one felt anything. Let’s just pretend nothing happened because we can’t handle something like what happened in Haiti!”