Imagine! My very first Thread, and it wound up not being planned at all!
A few minutes ago, there was a Midwestern earthquake. Ennyone else feel it?
I used to live in California, so yes, I can tell if it’s an earthquake or not. 
Here is SE Indiana, I was up for a snack (I work nights anyway & this is my night off so I was naturally awake) & I felt the house rattle. I thought Mom might have woken up & run to the bathroom but she was fast asleep. I turned on the local radio & Louisville KY TV & they confirmed it!
Info is here. According to the most recent radio report, it is from the New Madrid Fault.
http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/cus/STORE/X851141_08/ciim_display.html
http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/cus/STORE/X2008qza6/ciim_display.html
It startled me out of my sleep. My first thought was “Goddamn it! Shut up and don’t wake my son!” When I was living in Chile where everything under a 7.0 was considered a mere tremor, my host family used to find my earthquake antics (running for a doorway) hilarious. Anyway, I’ve never gotten used to tremors or earthquakes, so I figured I’d just get out of bed for the day. What was funny was that last night I was convinced something was going to happen - a storm, maybe. So I renewed the batteries in all our flashlights. Sometimes I think I’m part dog.
Anyway, the thing that sucks most about this is that it’s all the local news channels will be talking about for two days.
I’m convinced now that I felt a very light tremor about a month ago, too. It felt like my cat had jumped onto the back of the sofa… except she hadn’t.
This, on the other hand, felt like a giant was trying to hump my house. Egads.
Reports are that it was 5.4 out of Southern Illinois.
I’ve alerted the PTB that this thread might be more stable in MPSIMS.
Those who felt this quake can report their experiences to the USGS at this location for Event 851141, which was 19 miles SSE of Olney, Illinois APR 18 2008 04:36:57 CDT. I just got done filling in the form, which I found as I was seeking the answer to the question “Whoa! wuzzat an earthquake?!”
Woke my wife and me up at 4:35. Quoth she: “Is that an earthquake?” Me: “Yup. That’s an earthquake.” Waited for it to subside, at which point she said “weird,” and rolled over and went back to sleep.
it was felt all over the place. nice little wake up! at 4:30ish am.
0438 this morning. Annoyed me. Then my neighbors all had to go outside remarking “Holy cow!” and such. Grr. Ruken wants sleep, not shaky bed.
At least I don’t have to go to work today, because I’m taking off to go to Chicago for the weekend!!! 
5:38 am. woke me up. bed was shaking house was shaking, the closet doors were rattling in their frames. about 20 - 25 seconds. oops. my bad. i was sure it was new madrid.
now been confirmed it was out of the wabash valley fault system and not the new madrid.
Moving thread from ATMB to MPSIMS.
Holy flurking schnitt! The 1906 San Francisco earthquake happened on April 18!! (I just now found that out.)
I’m C&Ping my post from earlier, in another thread:
We had one just while ago, at 5:37 ET, centered somewhere near Olney, IL.
I’m in west central Indiana, and our daughter and I were awake at the time.
I was in the kitchen, getting coffee, and felt the shaking. It lasted for nearly 10 seconds.
It was only a 5.4, but it was still rather cool to experience, nonetheless!
There were a few pictures off kilter, and a few things rattled on top of my kitchen shelves, and things in our daughter’s room rattled around. She was in her computer chair, and it began to roll just a bit, too.
I suppose I should check the foundation and outside walls, after it gets a little more light outside, just to be on the safe side. Also, the gas and water lines.
Earthquakes are such a rare occurrence here, nothing is really built to withstand much of an earthquake, I’d imagine. So, it’s best that things get checked out.
This was not part of the New Madrid fault system, but it was part of the Wabash Valley fault system. I need to Google that, and do some research on it, as I know nothing about that one!
Bumping my own (first!) thread, the wonder is compounded by the downright hostile looking weather. Not that I wish anything bad on anyone, but a major thunderstorm would be, perhaps, too perfect to ask for. 
ETA: Sorry, mods. In my enthusiasm, I didn’t pick the right forum.
Heh. Woke me up out of fairly deep sleep, and my first thought was that the Better Half was lying there beating off. I thought, “Bwah?” And then, “Whoa!”
So I lay there feeling the bed shake for a while, still half-asleep, and wondered if I should roll over and interrupt him, or if he’d be too embarrassed, or what. After 34 years you’d think I’d know the answer to that question, but no. So while I was still lying there thinking about it, the shaking tapered off and I figured he’d given up, so I rolled over and said, “Hey”–and he wasn’t there. Now that was weird.
talk about weird…
i heard it before i felt it. strangest sound i’ve ever heard. this is my third earthquake since living in the central indiana area (30-odd years, emphasis on the odd ), but it’s the first time i heard it before feeling it.
I was here for the one back in '87, and I didn’t hear that one…This one, yeah. I agree with Scubaqueen that it was a very strange sound.
I’m not sure if the one back in '87 was stronger than this one, or not.
I know I felt the shaking more then, maybe because I was in the basement at the time? I was in the same house today, as the one back in '87, but I was on the ground floor this time.
EDIT: My daughter said that it made her inner ear feel weird. I guess that’s the sound it made that was doing that. Or maybe it was screwing with her equilibrium, or something.
Woke us both up too at 5:38. Woke up and the house was shivering and creaking. My first thought was it was wind, but I wasn’t hearing wind noises. Then I thought to myself “is it an earthquake?”. Just as I realized that was what we were experiencing, the tremors subsided.
Very strange. And I find it odd that having lived for 6 years in the earthquake-prone Puget Sound area of Washington state, I had to move back to Indiana to experience my first real earthquake.
I thought my mother’s cat had jumped onto the bed (I’m visiting my parents.) I sat up but there was no cat and then I heard the heat switch on but nothing was coming out of the heat register. Then I noticed the window frame rattling. I remembered that sound from the earthquake of 1980, so, satisfied that I’d figured out the nature of the disturbance, I went back to sleep.
The pocket door to our bedroom rattled, and the earth definitely shook slightly, around 5:40.