Yup, the aforementioned old farmhouse that I live in has a storm cellar, complete with sloping entry door on the side of the house and stairs leading down into it. Ours also has a stairway from inside the house leading down in (probably added much later), however, unlike my grandfather’s farm house where you always had to go outside first if you had to go down there. Great for hiding out from tornadoes, if you have to. I wouldn’t really remark on those coming within a dozen miles of my place during the usual time of year, either, unless they happened to hit something impressive/do a lot of damage.
And yeah, we’ve had a mess of snow yesterday and today, but most of the coverage is about whether the area snowplows and budget are adequate to the task. Snow, even lots of snow, happens all the time around here. Earth shaking noticeably? Well, that’s something new and neat. It was much nicer to hear that was the commotion rather than a gas main explosion or something.
Someone from the USGS was on the local NBC affiliate’s 10:00 news. She said that 3.8 earthquakes happen weekly in California, but in Illinois, these are more like “20 year events.”
Also, my husband, who majored in geology and geophysics in college, thinks that limestone is a better conductor of sound and vibration in general, hence the noticeable results further away here than in the igneous/metamorphic-heavy region of California.
I was rattled out of sleep – things on my dresser were clinking and hubby was up working in the next room. “What’s that?!” We both experienced it together – it was like a freight train in our backyard. An interesting few seconds. House still standing, no cracks in the walls. Location: 30 min. from Dekalb.
About 18 miles from the epicenter. It rattled me awake. My first thought was “that’s a pretty big earthquake for around here.” I had to get up to make sure it wasn’t the New Madrid fault letting loose; that’s a potentially catastrophic quake for the Memphis area. The real shaking didn’t last very long, but a little bit of well, quivering, went on for 15 to 20 seconds. I probably wouldn’t have noticed this except that we have glass shower doors that make even the slightest shake pretty audible. People I know who were more on top of it said that they heard crashes. One thought a tree had landed on her house. She and her neighbor both ran out to look at the trees. This puzzles me; all I heard was rattling.
Here is a map of the earthquakes that have happened in the US in the last 7 days. Most of them go by without being felt. A 3.8 is at the very low edge of being detectable.
Who’s whining? We’re talking about seismic activity caused by an unknown source, as apparently that wasn’t due to the New Madrid fault. This is awesome!
Actually, when I used that phrasing around my husband, he corrected me with “no, this is scary” - in the sense of ‘uhoh, earthquakes should be reasonably well-understood in source - WTF?’ I revised my statement to something more like “really interesting.”
Nope, slept right through it. Didn’t even know about it 'til I got to work. It caused a power failure and we couldn’t login to the university’s computer system until noon.
Here’s a picture (scroll down) of a seismogram of the earthquake. Absolutely nothing, and then BAM!
Here is the wiki article on the Illinois 2008 Quake. 5.2, it shook me out of bed 200 miles away. I was concerned because I live very near the New Madrid Fault.
I have lived in this region for almost 20 years, and I have felt 4 other quakes in this area.
When I was kid, I felt a big earthquake in Vermont in June 1973. We were at our summer shoddily constructed cabin and I thought it was going to cave in.,
