Sitting having lunch on the boardwalk here in NJ and was wondering who was shaking the booth we were sitting in. ; After looking around and seeing no one I thought it was just a weird thing that happened. ; Walk next door to an arcade and on the news is and earthquake hits VA. ; Felt it in NJ! ; What will be next? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It apparently was felt in New England, and the upper mid west also. ; A pretty strong one for the east coast too! 5.9
There is part of me that is glad it was a quake, because it crossed my mind when it was happening but dismissed and not mentioned for fear my wife would think me nuts (not that she needs more evidence). ; Funny thing was that she thought the same thing. ; My daughter and her friend were oblivious to it.
I was on a conference call with some folks in DC. ; We heard "Oh my God, what was that?" then a fire alarm. ; They forgot to disconnect the phone in the panic, so we heard someone say "earthquake" and then a PA announcement to evacuate the building. ; It was a tense moment, thinking it was more likely to be a terrorist bomb than an earthquake.
I thought something was wrong with ME... kind of like when you get up too fast and everything seems "spinny".
I was in Frederick, MD, 104 miles from the epicenter. Darn thing felt like I was standing on a floating dock when a big wave went by, then a long, slowly decreasing vibration for at least 60 seconds. But we didn't evac or panic; we all gathered in the hallway to laugh about it.
Still that had to be a cool feeling. ; I mean the ground moving beneath your feet on the east coast?! That is crazy!
It was a cool feeling about 15 minutes later when I saw on TV that I was not crazy in my thoughts of it being an earthquake! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I've only experienced one previous quake in my entire life; there was a minor tremor in Maryland when i was about 12 years old. I remember it vividly because it was such a unique experience. But yesterday's tops that one by far; the one when I was 12 was nearly identical to the feel and sound we got when a large truck drove up the street past or house, except that it was a little more intense and lasted about 45 seconds. Yesterday's quake felt more like a large truck had actually impacted the building and rocked it, but then the rumbling continued for 60 seconds or more. It was a huge surprise, but not really a scare, at least not for anyone in the building where I was.
Talk to me when your 4th floor condo falls down 20 feet and your TV lands on your legs while you're in bed, because your matress with you on it has come off the box frame and is lying on the floor, which no longer has any cement beneath the carpet that is now the only thing keeping you from joining your downstairs neighbor's condo. ; Actually, for any wannabe amateur geologists here - earthquakes are not terribly uncommon on the east coast, just usually quite small...the largest was in 1886, a 7.3 magnitude quake that levelled Charleston, SC...and was felt from Jacksonville to Montreal. ; Funny thing about the east coast - the Appalachians are the spine for what is essentially one continuous slab of bedrock, from the Florida panhandle to upper Maine, so when quakes occur along the eastern seaboard, that whole slab of bedrock can feel it. ; Conversely, in California where the ground is fractured into thousands of pieces, the earthquakes don't travel nearly as far - sometimes you can be just a hundred miles away from a 6.0 earthquake and not feel it.
That's a pretty interesting thought Justin, thanks! ; That quake you dealt with must have been an eye opener! LOL! Sorry about the bad joke, I had to go there.
You want an example of REALLY serious power? ; Check out stories on the 1964 Good Friday Alaska earthquake. ; Way up in Prince William Sound, and massive damage in Anchorage & surrounding areas, but more importantly it also managed to kill people in California, Japan, and Hawaii via the large Tsunami it created. ; And it was so powerful, some ground-fed springs and lakes in Florida dried up or lowered due to the quake, chandeliers shimmied in Washington DC, several fishing boats sank in Louisiana, and wells sloshed in Africa. And yeah...at 4:30am on a Sunday, mine was definitely an unfortunate eye-opener. ;
i was at my desk doing paperwork, when everything sort of went blurry, 2x in a row, i just thought, oh damm, i'm having a stroke, wonder if anyone will call 911 for me.
