The Eastern Earthquake

[Dave (imported)]

Not here where I am in western PA..

Reports are coming in from Wash DC, New York City, the Carolinas and mostly up and down the east coast.

[kristoff]

And last nite 5.5 in colorado.

[tugon (imported)]

Felt the quake here in Central Ohio. Thought something was wrong with me the way I was swaying. Well there is but we also had an earthquake.

[Riverwind (imported)]

5.9 magnitude quake rocks East Coast

By Douglas Stanglin (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/repo ... s+Stanglin), USA TODAY

Updated 4m ago

Update at 2:15 p.m. ET: "It scared the heck out of me, I'm still shaking," said Joan Morris, spokewoman for the northern district of the Virginia Department of Transportation. A few minutes after the quake, there were no reports of damage to roads or bridges in the state, Morris said.

Update at 2:13 p.m. ET: The USGS now puts the magnitude of the quake at 5.9.

Update at 2:12 p.m. ET: The quake could be felt in McLean, Va., headquarters of USA TODAY. It caused the building to sway. Some items could be heard falling from shelves. A number of employees went left the building.

Update at 2:10 p.m. ET: NBC reports that the quake was centered nine miles from Mineral, Va., which is 100 miles south of Washington, D.C.

Says Doug Kammerer, meteorlogist with the NBC affiliate in Washington, calls the tremor a "very big earthquake for our area."

The quake struck around 1:15 p.m. ET and lasted for about 30 to 45 seconds.

There have been no reports of injuries or widespread damage.

Update at 2p.m. ET: Reuters reports a 6.0 magnitude earthquake centered near Mineral, Va., rocked the mid-Atlantic states and was felt as far north at Manhattan and as far south as North Carolina.

Update at 1:57 p.m. ET:The Associated Press reports that the Pentagon is being evacuated.

An apparent earthquake rocks Washington, D.C. area.

Fox news reports that several public buildings, including the Capitol, have been evacuated.

A 5.9 is a baby quake, if this was in San Francisco or LA it would not even make the local news.

River

[Dave (imported)]

AMTRAK shut down east coast service to check its infrastructure -- tracks, tunnels, bridges, buildings...

apparently it's SOP ...

Newark and JFK Airports shut down their control towers to check for damage.

[A-1 (imported)]

Put it in the political cesspool, please.

Thank you.

P.

[MacTheWolf (imported)]

My lady-friend in Virginia is still shaking from the 5.9 tremor.

I told her that we Californians have 100 or so quakes daily though most don't even register more than a blip on the Richter Scale.

[moi621 (imported)]

Those Eastern E'quakes do love to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles and a lot of the architecture is stone like that crumbles in vibrations.

In California, we know our multi-fault system limits E'quake radius.

The East should definitely invest in some fault lines as future E'quake insurance as well as retrofitting their structures to California or Japanese standards.

Moi

[Paolo]

The thing to keep in mind is that things on the East Coast are not made to withstand powerful earthquakes, and 5.9 isn't exactly a small one - no matter what the Cali-foh-nians think.

Conspiracy theory aside, it's time for the New Madrid to move, too, and when it does - look out. It's going to cause some serious damage.

[Riverwind (imported)]

True, but a 5.9 is the top of the bottom of the list of quakes that usually don't do any damage. and yes when the New Madrid fault breaks free St Louis and other cities on that fault are going to be on the ground. They build everything out of brick and brick does not do well when shaken hard.

Remember the Richter scale formula,

The Richter scale is logarithmic, meaning that whole-number jumps indicate a tenfold increase. In this case, the increase is in wave amplitude. That is, the wave amplitude in a level 6 earthquake is 10 times greater than in a level 5 earthquake, and the amplitude increases 100 times between a level 7 earthquake and a level 9 earthquake. The amount of energy released increases 31.7 times between whole number values.

River