Minor Earthquake Rattles Washington, DC Area

[Turborama]

Source: AP

The DC area was shaken by a minor earthquake early Friday.

The quake hit at 5:04 a.m. EDT and had a magnitude of 3.6.

The quake was centered in the Rockville, Md., area said Randy Baldwin, a physicist with U.S. Geological Survey'sNational Earthquake Information Center.

Gloria Jackson, a police communications supervisor for the Montgomery County Police Department, said the department has gotten numerous calls about the earthquake, but that no injuries or significant property damage had been reported as of 5:35 a.m.

Read more: http://www.wcbs880.com/pages/7705661.php

---

Magnitude
3.6

Date-Time
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 09:04:47 UTC
Friday, July 16, 2010 at 05:04:47 AM at epicenter

Location
39.167°N, 77.252°W

Depth
5 km (3.1 miles) set by location program

Region
POTOMAC-SHENANDOAH REGION

Distances
15 km (10 miles) NW of Rockville, Maryland
30 km (15 miles) ENE of Leesburg, Virginia
35 km (20 miles) NW of WASHINGTON, D.C.
70 km (45 miles) WNW of ANNAPOLIS, Maryland

Location Uncertainty
horizontal +/- 13.3 km (8.3 miles); depth fixed by location program

Parameters
NST= 15, Nph= 15, Dmin=44.7 km, Rmss=1.49 sec, Gp=133°,
M-type="Nuttli" surface wave magnitude (mbLg), Version=6

Source
USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)

From: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Quakes/us2010yua6.php

People reporting 1st hand experiences on Twitter: http://www.google.com/search?q=washington+dc+earthquake&num=50&hl=en&safe=off&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&prmd=u&tbs=rltm:1&tbo=u&ei=8CRATJ_YA4e4vgO3oqWHDQ&sa=X&oi=realtime_result_group_more_results_link&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDEQ5QUwAw

[countingbluecars]

1. It really shook my house!

Definitely not something we are used to here.

[Turborama]

2. Wow, did it wake you up?

Hopefully nothing's broken...

[bigworld]

3. Definitely felt it here in northern Silver Spring!

A long, slow rumble. Woke me up, and I'm usually a sound sleeper!

[countingbluecars]

4. I was just getting

up to let the dog out. It was a big boom and then the house shook-nothing major enough to break anything. But my dog does not want to come back inside!

[Waiting For Everyman]

8. We got a strong shake here in Frederick too.

It was weird though - the shaking felt vertical like a lift and drop rather than horizontal (the "bowl of jello" kind). I was in L.A. for the big one there in '71, so I know what the horizontal kind feels like. I thought of a quake at first, but this seemed more like a crack in my foundation. (Glad it wasn't that.)

I thought I heard a boom too, but I wasn't sure because I had headphones on. Good to know, at least I wasn't hallucinating that either.

[Roland99]

5. See? God *does* exist!

Now whether God likes the financial reform bill or not is still up in the air....

[eringer]

6. A Great Earth Shake (for our area anyway)

I was watching the local morning news when the earthquake hit this morning. I live in Fairfax Station, VA. Seemed like the house shook east to west. Clock on the Verizon cable box read 5:05 AM. First time for me and I have lived in the DC area for 60 years. No damage to report.

[Chalco]

7. I felt it in Rockville

The house shook for 10 seconds. It woke me up. After it was over I said, "Nah, that can't be an earthquake, it was probably the dog having a nightmare." (He sleeps in our bed.)

Then, when I got up at 6:30 my daughter asked if I felt the earthquake.

Turned on the tv and it was all over the news.

[Joe Bacon]

9. Did Coburn fart?

:evilgrin:

[maddogesq]

27. Dang it, you stole my joke. I was going to use Boehner. :) NT

.

[Rebubula]

10. Scared the crap out of me!

I Had no idea what was happening....thought my house was getting eaten by a sinkhole.

Been sort of giddy since finding out what happened. LOL...an Earthquake...

Since there was (at least known yet) damage or injuries, this was sort of a neat\cool event.

[No Elephants]

11. Pat Robertson's psycho explanation of the unusual metereological event in 5-4-3-2-

Cause Pat is sufficiently godlike to be able to read God's mind unerringly.

[renegade000]

12. holy crap...so that's what it was!

it woke me up! was pretty short though... i kind of thought i was half-imagining it!

[Demeter]

13. Dick, Is That You?

New heart giving you heartburn?

[bdamomma]

14. is everything ok out there now?

just asking my daughters are in Fairfax for a school trip going back and forth to DC

[Burma Jones]

15. I slept through it

Woke my wife up though. She asked me later, at breakfast, if I had felt something, I said no and suggested that maybe DC had been nuked, but we had electricity and we lose power fairly easily, so I figured it couldn't have been a nuke. We live near the Potomac, so I figured a plane came into land at National way too low, but that wasn't it either. Maybe a Chopper? Nope. She asked me whether I had been through an earthquake here, just one, a small one which lifted and dropped with a big bang the roof of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Columbia MD where I was singing in choir practice one evening. So, I go over to the TV, turn on the local news, and there's all sorts of blather about a 3.6 earthquake centered about 6 miles from us over in Germantown.

[Yeahyeah]

16. "3.6 earthquake, the strongest to hit the area in more than 36 years"

guess I know what number to play today

http://dc.about.com/b/2010/07/16/washington-dc-earthquake.htm

[Kingofalldems]

17. I felt it big time---whole house shook.

I thought it was a low flying passenger jet, didn't even consider earthquake.

[gauguin57]

18. You can read about where the quake was felt ... and report what you felt ... to USGS here:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/events/us/2010yua6/us/index.html

[gauguin57]

19. Apparently, some felt it faintly in southern PA (according to USGS site)

... dog was barking her head off right after 5 a.m. here in southcentral PA. Perhaps she felt what I didn't?

[SemperEadem]

20. WTF?

I moved to the other side of the country to avoid that shit and it followed me here? :::walks out into oncoming traffic:::

[CatWoman]

26. lol

:rofl:

on a serious note, I wonder if it affected any of the monuments?

[BrklynLiberal]

21. Gee..Wonder what "The Lord" is punishing those people for ???

As per Robertson et al..for Katrina and Earthquake in Haiti.

[freedom fighter jh]

22. Didn't feel it in Reston, VA

Was awake with insomnia, sitting in my rocking chair, correcting test papers.

Maybe I didn't feel it because I was rocking? Or because I was at ground level? I think you feel it more if you are higher up.

[lovuian]

23. Heads up Washington Mother Earth isn't happy

she is telling you something

[slackmaster]

24. We get quakes that size or larger pretty much every day in Califonria

Mother Earth is just having a little fun.

[mikelgb]

25. whose head exploded?

and over what?

[bikebloke]

28. Felt it in Arlington

At first I thought it was a big truck pulling up to the light outside. There was a heavy vibration. When it didn't pull away, I briefly thought it may have been a quake before returning to sleep.

I'd experienced quakes when I lived in Seattle. Damn, the earthquake gods finally tracked me down.

[Liberty Belle]

29. Here in East San Diego, known as "shake and bake" territory,

we don't even bat an eye at quakes less than 4.5 or 5.
Literally. The little rockers we call "quake surfing" and nobody is scared.

But we're used to this. Our region is the most seismically active in CA (especially since the 7.2 Mexico quake) and also the most fire prone. Most folks here are much more scared of wildfires than quakes!

As long as your house is not too old and has some seismic retrofits, you're ok.