It was the morning of April 5, 2024. I had just gotten off work and was wiping down the walls of my cell when the floor started to vibrate under me. I planted my feet and tried to figure out what was happening. The trembling lasted about six seconds, long enough that I looked down and noticed the grip my toes had taken through my gray and white socks as I braced myself.
Hunterdon County is home to New Jersey’s only women’s prison, Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, where I am housed in North Hall, a brick structure holding 40 single-occupancy, 8-by-10-foot cells.
When the trembling stopped, I jumped over piles of laundry I had sorted on the floor. I opened my door to see the ladies on my wing nervously scrambling in and out of rooms, checking on each other.
No one knew for sure what had happened. One young woman suggested it was an earthquake, but dismissed it just as quickly. Earthquakes do not happen in New Jersey. All the same, conversation erupted throughout the hallway of the wing. What would we do in an earthquake?
My mom believes events like earthquakes are a sign of the end of the world. She jokes that if something like that were to happen, I was to get under the bed and she will find me. I did not share this with the ladies, but I knew where I would be if I ever had to take cover in here.
The majority of my neighbors said they would be running. Just then, my neighbor Natasha darted out of her room, a huge cheeseburger in hand.
“Did y’all feel that?” she said.
Just as we started laughing at Natasha and her burger, our regular officer strode down our wing. He locked each one of our doors, saying there was a Code 22.
We all know this code. It is called when something out of the ordinary occurs. According to one of my regular officers, it is technically called a standup face count and is called whenever the count is off, suggesting a possible escape or that the officer just counted wrong. Or, that a hot air balloon from the nearby balloon ride tour agency flew too close and mistakenly landed in the compound, which I’ve seen happen at least three times. Not once in my years at Edna Mahan has a Code 22 meant an earthquake.
When we hear that code, we know to leave whatever area we are in and immediately return to our rooms or bunks to be visually counted by the officer.
Once the excitement died down, I continued cleaning and listening to the television. Seconds later, the news station had the answer. It was an earthquake — in New Jersey. The 4.8-magnitude quake was confirmed at 10:23 a.m. with the epicenter in White House Station, about 10 miles from Edna Mahan. It was felt throughout the surrounding tri-state area.
We immediately started knocking on the walls of our rooms, trying to get one another’s attention.
“Yo! It was an earthquake!”
At 11:15 a.m., officers came around to check the windows for damage. There was none. Thankfully, there were no reports of injuries or deaths anywhere in the tri-state area.
The code cleared at 12:22 p.m., and we were allowed out of our rooms. The internet kiosks were down, but the phones were still working, so I called to check on my mom. She hadn’t felt anything, but my nephew woke up when his bed started shaking. As he recounted his story over the phone, I could hear my mom in the background: “This is a sign of the times, according to Matthew within the Holy Bible.”
A day later, the kiosks were back up and there were still no injuries reported. It was back to business as usual.
Out in the world, at least one enterprising Jersey store started selling T-shirts for $10.
“I survived the New Jersey earthquake,” they read. I heard people were lined up for blocks to buy one.
