Friday, April 18, 2008

I feel the earth move under my feet

I've been in Florida when a hurricane was near. Living in the mid-west I've been around many tornadoes, thunderstorms, flooding, snow storms, and the rare thunder snow. I didn't expect to experience an earthquake like this here. This morning at 4:37 am a 5.2 magnitude quake shook me out of my sleep. Not understanding what was going on, I thought I was going crazy. The whole house was shaking and there was a low rumbling just like you might imagine a quake would sound like. The kids never woke up but my MIL who is visiting did. It was the craziest thing. The walls, the bed, everything was bouncing. Nothing fell off the walls, but it really shook em. The epicenter was 6 miles SW of West Salem, IL or 130 miles south of us and it was the strongest quake in the region in the past 40 years. The earthquake occurred in the Wabash Valley fault system, adjacent to the New Madrid Seismic Zone. Here's a local report.
I don't know how long it lasted, maybe 15-20 seconds at most. They say to expect aftershocks, but nothing too serious. So far we've not felt any more shaking. It was so still and quiet outside immediately afterwards. I'm sure people who live in CA or other areas that are used to this sort of thing but for a mid-western girl, this is Big haps. Here's the CNN link.
UPDATE: I just spoke with my sister in Iowa. Just yesterday her 11 year old son was talking to his dad about earthquakes. He's been known to make freaky predictions. He said "I bet there will be an earthquake in the 5 surrounding states soon." That's exactly how it was reported this morning on their local news. doodee-doodee-doo.
Apparently there was a 4.5 magnitude aftershock at 10:20 am. I didn't feel it, but our friend RK did. Aftershocks are expected to continue throughout the day. There were others measuring 2.6 and 2.5.

2 comments:

RK said...

What?? An earthquake?? I thought it was just an elephant outside my window. Maybe that was just a dream. :o)

JRS said...

Maybe it WAS an elephant?! It actually woke me from one of those horrible dreams where I'm back in h.s. or college and missed an exam. I'll take elephants any day.