An earthquake (5.9, preliminary magnitude) was felt up and down the U.S. east coast moments ago. It’s being reported that the epicenter was Mineral, Virginia and the quake was 3.7 miles deep.
Many federal buildings, including the Pentagon, have been evacuated in Washington, DC. According to The Associated Press, “Obama and many of the nation’s leaders were out of town on August vacation when the quake struck at 1:51 p.m. EDT. The shaking was felt on the Martha’s Vineyard golf course as Obama was just starting a round.”
Some buildings in NYC have also reportedly been evacuated.
We felt it up here in our palatial summer headquarters in Saratoga Springs, NY. Reminded us of any random month in Cali (but a bit stronger than average). No damage here, besides our Operation and Jenga games which will have to be restarted.
In influx of voice and data users following the quake has temporarily disrupted cellphone and landline service on AT&T, Verizon, and other carriers.
Interestingly, another quake (related?) with a preliminary magnitude of 5.3 and centered about nine miles from the city of Trinidad, Colorado hit at 11:46pm local time yesterday on Monday, August 22, 2011. It was felt as far away as Greeley, CO about 350 miles north, and into Kansas and New Mexico.
Did you feel either quake? Where were you? Any damage?
Frackin’ gas companies..
Quake occurred in the same Virginia county where 2 nuclear power plants operate. Both plants were taken off-line and put on diesel generators.
There better be enough diesel fuel in the tanks, or this story will get a whole lot bigger very quickly.
Must be caused by Global Warming, I mean Climate Change, I mean communism, I mean Maobama. Liberals suck!
On the 7th floor of an office building downtown Boston – building was swaying. All clear now.
Felt it in Charlotte, NC
Wake Forest NC felt it also, felt like a stampede of people on the roof, you could feel it moving from one end of the building to another.
5.8 earthquake added excitement to faculty meeting in Baltimore, md.
Yup! Felt it in Rochester, NY.
Location=NYC
Reaction=Yawn
Location = Rest of the united states (other than NYC)
Reaction = NYC? Who the hell cares?
Thank you, GM! My sentiment exactly.
Who cares? Oh, only the millions of human beings who live there, and their loved ones.
Please try to do your small part to make this a better world by not being an a**hole.
I thought I was losing my balance and was about to pass out, then I saw the tall bookcase swaying and knew it wasn’t me. Winston-Salem, NC. Seems like it lasted around 30 sec.
Yes I felt it at 1:55 PM. only the second in my life. Computer monitor shook. And my chair was wiggling. Inwas on the second floor. No damage here in Natick, MA that I know of.
… MA, I was napping and never noticed! Until my wife called and said “there was an earthquake!”. I’ll blame it on my early training in northern Japan, a little daily shaking was “normal”.
Alexandria, VA. was in the basement of a house, thought it was going to cave in on me.
CNN says it was probably caused by all those TouchPads being returned at one time. Unbalanced the planet a little.
Like!
YES!! 🙂
Thanks for the days belly laugh!
Definitely a +1
Jersey Shore (not MTV) here, office shook, no damage.
wow.
1st earthquake around here in ≈ 20 years.
5.9 richter
strange feeling.
no damage hopefully to foundation newly renovated house!
hopefully this won’t repeat now that ocean ridge started after so long.
what are humans doing to their planet?!
new age politicians completely deny existence of ecological problem. engineers deny need for green tech, as they say in the end, with all the highly toxic hybrid batteries you create for example, you worsen the situation. or it does not matter what alternative energy you produce, such as wind, solar etc., since you need good old gas to transport it & supply all!
yes, but green tech could’ve solved this decades ago, would we not make such excuses & delay the inevitable. now our economy has imploded due to procrastination, human error!
some scientists predicted decades ago, the East Coast, though not an earthquake zone, would get an earthquake so bad, all would be destroyed in NY etc. if the weather guys can’t figure out the weather in a few hours from now, i hope these scientists are just as wrong.
but, nature is only sneezing, as we made it.
You really believe that there is anything us humans could do to cause an earthquake? (aside from the nuclear option)
And BTW, you forgot to say where you were.
Yep…Hadron collider in Europe.
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/lhc/lhc-en.html
Actually, there is so much water stored in dams in the northern hemisphere, that it has caused the Earth to shift on its axis. So the theory goes anyway.
I guess you could hypothesise that alteration of the atmospheric composition could change its weight (one way or the other), but once again, but whether that would have any ability to cause earthquakes would need to be studied and I’m unaware of any such studies.
But there’s not anything we can do about the inner workings of the planet and how it affects the crust. All we can do is make buildings stronger, more flexible and durable to withstand a good (bad) hard shake.
I agree we should do all we can to eliminate the generation of pollution – of every kind – and move to green technologies. Means clean water, air, soil and oceans which is good for the entire food chain and hence good for us, being at the top of the food chain.
BUT, there is no way you can link greenhouse gasses (or any other kind of pollution) to earthquakes – that’s just batty!
Glad there was no one hurt in this latest shake.
Your analysis is right on spot. In Greece where I live, earthquakes of this magnitude or even stronger are very common and they only cause problems to poorly constructed buildings.
Carter put up solar panels on the WH after the US peak oil. Then Reagan, as a show of support of Big Oil took the solar panels down. The US had a sensible moment in switching to green energy. Imagine if we followed the lead for the last 30 years. Instead, we are still 30 years behind in green energy and jobs.
With the planet as hot as it is, you would think we would have canvased the surface of this planet with solar panels pumping energy into the grid 12-14 hours a day.
Instead we have the uneducated low info voters saying there is no climate change. Ask Texas if there no climate change. We have had almost 2 months straight in triple digit highs and record drought in all of the state. Ranchers/farmers can not even get rid of the cattle to sell at market since it is over saturated, so they will die in the pasture with no hay to feed them. Fish ponds not feed by springs are overtaken by algae and the fish are dead. That is just the tip of the iceberg in this local area.
Naw, everything is fine.
That is just the tip of the iceberg in this local area.
One day, this saying may lose its meaning, as there may be no more icebergs.
Yes, according to Al Gore, the temperatures below the surface of the Earth are soooooo frigging hot that we are actually causing the Sun to become hotter!
On a lighter note, I survived the Texas heatwave of 1980, although many of our cows didn’t.
How come it took 31 years to happen again?
Remember, Al Gore invented the interwebs so that makes him an expert in “global warming”. You remember “global warming” don’t you? Naw. Didn’t think so. Just another passing trend that will run it’s course soon. I wonder what old Al will get behind next? Looks like he’s been stopping at fast food places a lot. The boy is puffing up like a dead toad.
That type of climate change has been happening since the dawn our our planet. Its nothing new, in fact it is the very nature of weather and the climate: to CHANGE.
10,000 years ago (a very short time) the city Ottawa was buried under 150 feet of ice. Long before any man could possibly have an impact, the climate CHANGED.
It’s sad and pathetic, the utter waste, misinformation and manipulation of the masses these Al Gore types have. CO2, a building block for life is labelled as a poison by the fools that spew this man-made climate BS.
What is REALLY sad and pathetic is the readiness of fools like you to buy into distorted descriptions of actual scientific findings. I suggest you read up on works by people who are STUDYING the subject, rather than paid propagandists.
About 65 years ago, a squadron of p-38 fighters and bombers took off from the USA to fly to England to be put into service for WW2. Due to bad weather, they had to reverse course and try to make it back to North America. Not having enough fuel to make it to base, the landed on Greenland where they destroyed vital componets before being rescued 10 days after landing.
Fast forward 50 years or so… A group of explorers looking for the planes found them 240 feet under the ice. They melted a huge tunnel down to the planes and recovered one of the P-38 fighters which was reconditioned and flown once more before being placed into a flight museum.
Once that 240 feet of ice melts away to world war two levels, I will believe we are getting too warm on the planet. Until then, I will let the Earth flux in temperature like it has done for 1000’s of years. Also remember that less than 40 years ago environmentalists were screaming about the new ice age approaching.
The bit about the “screaming about the new ice age” is a plain and simple LIE. Never happened.
What ACTUALLY happened is that some climate scientists noticed that, if one theory about the recurrence of ice ages was valid, we COULD BE “due for a new one.” News outlets distorted that info, as they distort so much nowadays.
But climate scientists and environmentalists ALREADY KNEW that increasing greenhouse gases were making a new ice age impossible.
Please stop repeating stupid, easily refuted lies.
Yes, there is climate change, it’s been happening for the last few million years, nothing to do with human beings.
And yes Big Oil, the Rockefellers and Wall Street banks like the status quo, they hold our economy by the cojones, and both puppet parties Republican and Democrats take turns to bring this country down.
By the way, Jack Kilby from Texas Instruments invented a device in the 1970’s, to make electricity with Hydrogen Bromide fuel cells, but the big interests don’t want that in the market……
You’re joking, right?
People don’t cause earthquakes, regardless of what you read in comic books.
Actually, there was a smaller earthquake in Virginia earlier this year. The epicenter was north of Roanoke and I believe that it was around 4 on the Richter scale.
Psudoscience has taken religions place in comforting the small minded. Our natural world is unpredictable…and people “need” to have an explanation…
If you believe this is caused by humans as a scientist I can say you are wrong, stupid and misinformed.
1. Global Warming caused by gigantic ball of nuclear blasts in the sky increasing in reactivity.
2. It is natural phenomenon.
3. To suggest earthquakes in any form are caused by human you must be a completely bonkers.
4. Decades ago when I was heavily active in this area we were predicting inevitable deep freeze not global warming.
5. Next time speak with an educated professional before you open your liberal, idiotic, mouth that only has listened to the media instead of being educated in a proper manner.
6. If you still really believe that we are caused such horrible things to the planet please hold your breath. Stop breathing out C02 and save the planet or yourself.
Quit telling lies, Johnny. If in fact you were “active in this area” decades ago, you KNOW the BS about “predicting inevitable deep freeze” never happened.
See, I *was* active in environmental groups 40 years back (I’m 59), so I know from first-hand experience that you are one great big LIAR. And I do speak with a number of educated professional climate scientists on a regular basis, BTW. Obviously, you don’t.
Actually it wasn’t referred to as deep freeze, but a Global Winter – The reason given was that the increased output of carbon dioxide would create a global covering of cloud, allowing very little sunlight through. It seems to me that there was just about as much discussion (except for no internet)
Yes I am old enough to remember, and I do not lean one way or another. I am sure that we are having an effect, we just don’t really know what the result will be.
Pretending to know the answer, won’t change things.
Sorry, but this has nothing to do with earthquakes.
Has it occurred to anyone other than me that maybe the oil being pumped out of from beneath us is leaving a gap for an enormous sink-hole.
of course its oil being pumped
LOL!!! They don’t drill for oil in Virginia, but nice try!
Oil reserves don’t hold up the earth. They are in wells (which are pre-existing holes) so by sucking out th oil you are not taking away any support!
Yes! I’m sure there is a documentary on that somewhere with a cult-like following.
Hopefully the European Union will show us the way to control earthquakes.
Maybe President Obama will regulate earthquakes, thereby potentially saving California (and jobs)!
I smell another Piece Prize….!
The only thing Obama wants to regulate is the amount of bailout money he gives to the financial and big business. And he hates putting a limit on that.
Yeah, good thing Bush never gave any banks bailout money. He would SOOO never do that.
To get oil out of the land, you pump it out. When it gets slower, you pump water into the well. The oil floats to the top so it can be pumped out easier. So, oil is taken out, water put in. No hole when done.
In Baltimore, here. Was a weird feeling. Lasted about 35 seconds or so…. No damage, of course.
New Freedom, PA. Thirty five miles north of Baltimore and 172 miles from Mineral, VA.
Jack!
Things were interesting on the 11th floor of our Fairfax, VA building. The evac from the building was orderly and thankfully the weather was nice; better than last week with the 98+ & humidity. We drove through Mineral, VA last weekend on the way back from Emerald Isle, NC.
Fell on my head due to tremors. Not to worry, no lasting damage done. In fact it’s rather improved matters in the thinking department. But thanks for your concern.
Way to protect the nut!
in Concord, NH, 5th floor of 5-story brick building. Felt it shake for maybe 5+ minutes.
Air traffic control towers evacuated at JFK, NY
Felt it in NJ my bed shook like I have never seen it haha.
Felt it in Montreal, Canada. It lasted a moment, weird sensation, everything was moving left and right.
Sure it wasn’t another one of our roads or bridges collapsing?
We’re in Rockville, MD. Saw our entire living room MOVE. Spooked the dogs. Scary.
Was Apple testing iCloud?
**imagines Californians in their millions laughing at the wimps on the east coast**
Lol
So true.
Jersey City, NJ here…whole house shook, drawers came open, grill and patio furniture moved on the deck. No apparently damage (luckily!).
No earthquake here in Cali
Felt it here in Toronto Canada
Yep, large earthquakes are scary.
My city (Christchurch, NZ) took a direct hit in February. 181 dead, the central business district substantially damaged (still off limits), and thousands of homes rendered uninhabitable. All of this occurred in an environment where we build for earthquake resistance.
Since an earlier quake in September (larger, but a little further from the city), we’ve had over 8,000 aftershocks, just to keep us on our toes. Interesting times.