Earthquake? .. mother earth.. Options

[VoodooLady]

anyone here feel the earthquake today?? i'm 200 miles from the epicenter in Virginia and our office building swayed back and forth for 30 seconds .. it was freaky...

.. and i've got Mother Earth is a vicious crowd stuck in my head today

[OutToDry]

Didn't feel it but 5.8 is being joked at by the good west coast folks. It's all good. Perhaps it's a message for our foolhardy government.

[WaiterAtCliftons]

knocked a few things off some shelves in our house here in Lancaster. No major damage. I'm more worried about Irene as I'm headed to the OBX Saturday morning. Looks like I'll be playing chicken with a major hurricane.

[VoodooLady]

i'm in NJ, and so i certainly see the humor in the "reaction"..

but the weird thing is that this is the first time folks up here felt an earthquake and the first reaction was not earthquake, but terrorist attack.. people really didnt know what the hell it was, and that was the freakiest part of all.. me-- i thought it was the structural integrity of our shit office building finally collapsing!

[OutToDry]

totally understand that. That would certainly be the normal reaction, and it's the right one.

[Heather]

My office building was also swaying up here in Harrisburg, PA. I don't care what the magnitude of it was, that is NOT something I ever want to feel again! We were evacuated and then told to go home until they could be sure that the building was safe. Crazy shit!

As for the hurricane, I'm headed to the Outer Banks in a few weeks. Just hoping everyone and everything survives! That is also some scary shit!

This post has been edited by Heather: Aug 23 2011, 7:21 pm

[Rupe]

totally understand that. That would certainly be the normal reaction, and it's the right one.

Norfolk/Virginia Beach had a nice shake, too. I'm a structural engineer, but it was my first quake experience, and was a bit unsettling. Still, even at the epicenter, this likely wasn't even equal to what current building code requires for seismic design. Most of the damage you'll see will be cosmetic - cracked brick, cracked drywall, etc. Older buildings may fare worse.

Heading to OBX this weekend might not be the wisest plan. They might not even let you on later in the week, depending on the storm track.

[thefunkyredcaboose]

Rupe, fellow Norfolkian here. I work near the top of Dominion Tower and maaaan, it was freaky!

[Rupe]

Rupe, fellow Norfolkian here. I work near the top of Dominion Tower and maaaan, it was freaky!

You ain't kiddin! My office is near Military Circle, only 2nd floor, and it was a crazy little shimmy. Normally I might envy your view, but not today!

[rock4adiference]

I was out to lunch and walking around Manhattan, didn't feel a thing. When I got back up to the office on the 40th Floor everyone was standing around waiting for the announcement to be evacuated. They all felt the building sway and shake. The building decided it was nothing and we never got evacuated.

[SJN1279]

Didn't feel it but 5.8 is being joked at by the good west coast folks. It's all good. Perhaps it's a message for our foolhardy government.

Supposedly earthquakes are felt more intensely on the East Coast because the rocks there are older and denser.

What does our government have to do with an earthqake?

This post has been edited by SJN1279: Aug 24 2011, 7:27 am

[+Ed+]

It has to do away with the consequences!

[tiger]

.

This post has been edited by tiger: Aug 24 2011, 9:10 am

[tiger]

Double post. Never mind.

This post has been edited by tiger: Aug 24 2011, 9:12 am

[SJN1279]

WTF are you talking about? The earth is older on the east coast? The quake was felt on a wider range because it was a very shallow quake, only a mile from the surface.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/23/e...s_n_934810.html

Another East versus West contrast: The ground is different in the East in a way that makes the shaking travel much further, allowing people to feel the quake several states and hundreds of miles away.

The rocks in the Earth's crust in the East are colder, older and harder, which means seismic waves travel more efficiently and over greater distances. Rocks on the West Coast are relatively young and broken up by faults.

"An intact bell rings more loudly than a cracked bell and that's essentially what the crust is on the East Coast," USGS seismologist Lucy Jones told a news conference in Pasadena, Calif.