Earthquake!?!?

[Aikiweezie]

I woke up at 4:00 this morning when I heard my dogs bark, right after that I felt this BIG thimp or shockwave move through my house from the west. It woke my husband up, too. Turns out we had a 4.3 magnitude earthquake centered about 26 miles nw of where I am. That combined with the foot of snow we got last night should make for an interesting news day here.

[Asso]

[honeybee]

Wow! Be careful. I'm not sure what snow plus earthquake could do to infrastructures!

All we have is our second blizzard in a week here.

[Aikiweezie]

I was wrong on how far away the epicenter was, it's more like 50 miles away. It's crazy because I actually SAW my house move. I can't imagine how intense it felt in Sycamore where it hit.

No major damage, no injuries. Just a lot of tired and annoyed people.

[Linda]

Jim and I didn't feel anything, but the parrot was nervous. A few years ago when we had another earthquake the parrot was squwaking and the rabbit was thumping one of her back legs.

[Aikiweezie]

We had a much smaller quake 6 years ago and my dogs barking preceeded the shaking then, too. Animals just seem to know one's coming!

[Aquarius]

We had a small one in Michigan about 10 years ago or so. I think the epicenter was in Ohio somewhere. I was sitting in the livingroom watching TV, and I felt the vibration, saw the pictures bounce on the wall, and heard this noise that sounded like a cross between thunder and furniture being dragged across the floor. I just blew it off as a Really Big Truck going by! A little while later the maintenance man came by to fix our air conditioning and he asked me if I'd felt the earthquake. It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about, because I had already dismissed and forgotten the earlier incident.

[justTripn]

Wow! I didn't know quakes were common in the midwest. YIKES.

[Linda]

They are not very big quakes. I don't think they have caused damage to buildings or roads. At least they haven't in the Milwaukee area.

[Alelou]

We had a mild earthquake in Western Massachusetts on a Saturday morning when I was away at college. I thought it was just the cat jumping up on the bed. Then I remembered that at college I didn't have a cat...

I was in a more serious earthquake outside Seattle in 1964. That went on for a long time ... long enough for my brother and me to see all the pictures fall off the wall in our room. We ran into the dining room and saw the lights swinging, the deck swaying, and my mother under the dining room table with my baby brother. She was screaming hysterically at us to get away from the deck and join her under the table.

What she thought that flimsy dining room table was going to do for us if the house fell in, I really don't know, but then even at 4 I already was getting the idea that my mother was not the coolest head in an emergency.

[Linda]

I was in a couple of earthquakes that I did feel, over the summer of 1969 in Mexico City. They shook the ground a little, so I could feel them, but no one was hurt and nothing was distroyed. I don't think I would like to live in an area where they occurred often, and had the potential to do great damage, like on the west coast.

[Alelou]

Yikes! I think I'd be a lot more freaked out by shaking earth when I was living in the mouth of a volcano!

[panyasan]

We experienced a couple of earthquakes when we were living in Japan. With the biggest, I woke up and saw the lamp above my head beginning to shake. Then my bed. It took a couple of minutes. Friends of mine lived a in high building on the 12the floor. Their whole house was shaking, a couple things dropped, including their fish tank. For them it was a scary experience.

[vero3110]

I just got power back at my house. We had an 8,8 Richter earthquake on Friday at 3.34 in the morning, fortunately my family and I are all right but part of the country is isolated or on the floor. It was worse south from Santiago, there was a tsunamy and part of the coast is gone. The news are awful.

This is my second earthquake (that I remember so far). In 1985 it was hard but this time it was worse, a lot worse. I had to grab the walls to avoid falling down while everything went to the floor: glasses, books, pictures, paintings, the TV. The house moved like a shaker and the noise was incredible: crash after crash. My freezer moved about a meter from where it normally stands, unbelievable.

Everything considered and about 40 hours after it, I just have to thank - God or the Universe - that we are alright. Tomorrow I'm going to the office, we'll see how's everything over there.

Vero

[Dinah]

Wow! Vero, I'm so glad that you're all right. I hope your family and friends are all well, too. Take care of yourself. Our thoughts are with everyone in Chile.