As if Hurricane Irene’s menacing approach wasn’t enough, an earthquake of preliminary magnitude 5.9 struck northeastern Virginia about 20 minutes ago, and — as is typical for earthquakes in the eastern two-thirds of the country — was felt far & wide, from Toronto to the Deep South. I haven’t heard any damage reports yet. (I just learned about this via a text message from my mother-in-law, of all people.) But an earthquake of that magnitude in that part of the country could, I would think, cause some actual damage. Don’t laugh, Californians.
East Coast readers, did you feel it? Was there any damage?
[UPDATE, 1:24 PM: There has been damage to the National Cathedral. Coverage here. Also, there are reports that the Washington Monument is tilting. Um, #PANIC!?! … Oh, also, Gizmodo is collecting quake videos.]
P.S. Incidentally, this follows on the heels of Colorado’s largest earthquake since 1967, which hit near Trinidad (in the southern part of the state, near the New Mexico border) late last night, just about the time I was going to bed. It was a 5.3, and no, I didn’t feel it.
P.P.S. About the “felt far & wide” thing, here’s a bit more, from a 2008 blog post:
If you’re a Californian wondering how on earth [a relatively minor earthquake] could be felt so strongly, and in places [so] far afield … , it’s because, as explained here, “seismic waves in the East travel farther and pack more destructive punches.” The exact reason for this phenomenon is a topic of much debate among scientists, but “one explanation is that eastern geology is older and simpler, with fewer faults in the ground to slow the travel of quake waves.” See also here:
Earthquakes in the central and eastern U.S., although less frequent than in the western U.S., are typically felt over a much broader region. East of the Rockies, an earthquake can be felt over an area as much as ten times larger than a similar magnitude earthquake on the west coast.
That point is graphically illustrated here:
Of course, [today’s earthquake] is nothing compared to the Big One that will someday destroy Memphis and cause massive devastation all across the [central and eastern U.S.].
UPDATE: On phone with my parents. They felt it. Dad: “I was sitting at the computer table, and mom was in the kitchen. And the computer table starts to shake.” It felt like the way it would if mom was sitting at the table fidgeting and shaking it with her legs — but she wasn’t there. “Then I look and see the floor lamp is wobbling. ‘F***. Leanna, there’s an earthquake!'” Mom thinks shaking lasted 30 seconds, Dad thinks two minutes.
UPDATE 2: On the LRT Facebook page, a similar report from my friend Diane Krause in Hartford, CT: “Felt it!! Josh has some restless leg issues, so it’s not uncommon for me to accuse of him of ‘shaking the house’ but this time he stopped moving entirely and the whole house really WAS shaking!! Only lasted a minute or two, we figured it was construction or something until I checked my facebook and saw all the quake statuses.”
P.P.P.S. I suspect, by the time the evening news rolls around, we’ll be hearing that the earthquake was “felt from Canada to Florida, and as far west as Illinois,” or something like that.
P.P.P.P.S. Some folks, in New York City and elsewhere, saw tweets about the earthquake before the felt the acutal earthquake, for reasons explained by Gizmodo here.
Meanwhile, it seems some folks want to be mayor of the earthquake.
UPDATE: Heh:
Police departments in greater Hartford said that the earthquake resulted in a flood of phone calls, although none reporting injuries or damage.
East Hartford police said that they received “about 9 million phone calls,” reporting the shaking, while West Hartford police said they were inundated with descriptions of ground shaking. In Glastonbury and Manchester, dispatchers were similarly tied up, taking call after call from residents eager to report the quake.
I felt it. Not surprising, since I’m about 110 miles from a quake felt in NYC, Detroit, North Carolina, etc. No damage here that I can see. People around here are posting pictures of the poor bobble head dolls that have fallen to their deaths, or the solitary plastic lawn chair that fell over. So all seems fine here. The epicenter was in a pretty sparcely populated area of VA from what I can tell.
(Take that comment on VA geography with a grain of salt, btw.)
Also, the quake lasted at least 30 seconds. I was wondering if it would get any worse as it was going along. A VERY freaky experience.
I’ve already heard that Toronto felt it. So the Canada part of your prediction has already come true!
A mere 5.8 ? Pshaw ! That is how we stir our cappuccino lactose-free fat-free lattés out here !
USGS is saying 5.9 … and there seems to have been a 5.3 in Colorado in the past day, too …
Where was Sarah Palin/Michelle Bachmann ?
(Sorry – just channeling my democrat friends)
Just got back to my desk. Our building shook pretty hard for about 15-20 seconds or so before everyone started to
push each other out of the way in a primordial race to the exitsevacuate into the streets. No visible damage here in Alexandria as far as I could see. Our visiting Japanese clients want to know if we should start heading inland …Freaky indeed … my first thought (unfortunately) was that it was a bomb or something going off in DC, but then I realized that I would’ve heard an explosion …
Brandon, I was cheating on the “Canada” part, as I already knew from Twitter that it was felt in Toronto. 🙂
Here’s the comic explanation of social media being faster then earthquakes: http://xkcd.com/723/
Sorry, Brendano… the quake’s epicenter was Mineral, VA, WNW of Richmond and SE of Charlottesburg. That’s CENTRAL VA, not “northeastern”.
I was setting up my classroom–in the BASEMENT of my building–when we felt it in suburban DC. Once we realized that it had been an earthquake and not someone moving something heavy down the hallway, the general consensus was WTF?
and it seems that all of my DC-area friends had a similar reaction…
Of course, I meant Charlottesville, not Charlottesburg (which is in N)J…
New update: USGS guy saying that damages from this might top $1 BILLION DOLLARS! Which is weird, considering it was fairly minor. Hate to think what would happen if we ever had a REAL earthquake along the New Madrid fault.
Another disturbing report: Pentagon was shaking like a plate of jello. Is that what should be happening? If it seems shaky for this, that makes me nervous.
I could be wrong about this, but I believe that earthquake-proofing structures can have the side effect of making them shake more, yet decreasing the odds they’ll crack or collapse — so they “bend but don’t break,” so to speak.
Brendan – you are correct. Many buildings in CA are on rollers for earthquake proofing. I guess the idea is that the buildings will move back and forth with the quake smoothly rather than being rigidly stuck to a foundation with the tops swinging back and forth and possibly breaking. I’m sure someone with an engineering or architecture background could explain it better, but that’s my rough understanding.
We had a relatively small earthquake here a couple of years ago. I was in my office on the top floor of a 16 story high rise (well, high for OC standards) and it was terrifying because the building moved so much.
If the Pentagon was built upon a soil type known as a “liquefaction zone” , then it becomes *more* at risk from earthquakes due to the soil type … reclaimed marshy areas can be particularly problematic … the liquefaction zone can effectively magnify the destructive movements of an earthquake by acting like a bowl of jello …
I believe I was the only one on the East Coast who did not feel this earthquake. I probably did, but honestly, how am I supposed to tell the difference between 3-5 seconds of shaking vs. enjoying a really nice fart?
And yes, all those stories about 20-30 seconds of shaking are hogwash. You’d have to have near a 6.5 to feel an earthquake with strong shaking lasting longer than 10 seconds. You may very well feel a “roll” effect long after the shaking ends, depending on the soil type in your area and the building you are in, but the actual “shake” feeling had to have been quite brief for a 5.8. My guess is I didn’t feel much because I was on the first floor of a 12-story building in Rosslyn built into a hill that had a deep foundation and underground car garage, and since it was a hill and not a plain or valley, the foundation was probably tied into sturdier rock which absorbed the energy better than the nearby Potomac floodplain / marsh area that most of DC, MD, and NoVa is built upon.
Re, your “UPDATE” and “UPDATE 2“: so, the veryFirst instinct of both Diane and of Me, was to Blame the earthquake on our respective Spouses. / Ain’t Love Grand? 🙂
An’ just *what* were yer respective spouses doin’ wi’ each ither, then ?
Har har / Alasdair, yer mind’s in the Sheep dip. Again. ;}
They wuz a’doin’ it in the Sheep dip ???
WOW !
(grin)
Your mother-in-law of all people??????