New Jersey 4.7 or 4.8 Earthquake at 10:23am Apr 5, 2024

Felt the earthquake this morning at work on Long Island. Heard a rumbling sound, like someone rolling a heavy cart on the sidewalk outside, which kept getting louder, and shaking the building more than anything outside had a right to. Then it stopped.

Just felt an aftershock, magnitude 4, about 6:00pm local time. USGS shows the epicenter for this one very close to the one this morning.

But the strange thing: When I got in my car to go home, and turned on my shuffled playlist, the first song that came up was REM’s “It’s the End of the World as we Know It,” whose first line is

That’s great, it starts with an earthquake

My daughter in Brooklyn thought a heavy truck was passing in the street. Her husband didn’t notice anything.

The aftershock was shorter and softer. Our cat Sammy barely paid attention to this one.

I truly worry and am sympathetic to you guys up there.

But I have laughed so hard today at the reporters on CNN with their breathless, endless reporting on it. I swear they were drooling for someone to say something terrible happened.
I’m sure there are a few bad things like a brick fell off the fireplace and killed granny, instantly.

I haven’t watched the news since about 2 pm. So I don’t know of updates. So forgive me if it’s really horrible, and the cat fell off the ledge and broke her toenails.

I’m sorry. I really am.

Very little bad happened, a few older homes in Newark might not be safe to use, and I’ve heard nothing else significant.

My birth mother’s house was 9 miles from the epicenter (only 5 miles from the domicile of my 3 nieces and my sister and her spouse) and busted a water main flooding the entire street.

My phone blew up about the 4.0 aftershock. I didn’t feel it. We were visiting friends. They have a 2 year old who is a walking earthquake. With all of his jumping and running I couldn’t tell if anything happened.

My town also had a busted water main. We were rather farther than 9 miles away, though, and clearly have low quality water mains.

A friend felt it in Pennington, NJ, between Trenton and Princeton. She thought it was the wind shaking the trees, but the dogs she was sitting barked.
Any truth that NYC is going to be renamed Shaky Town East?

Local news is covering this more than California covered the Northridge quake.

Some damage to houses in Newark.

Was there big aftershocks or did I get the news late?

As of my last viewing there have been 26 earthquakes in the area within the last day. Only three were strong enough to be felt. The biggest aftershock was April 5th at about 6pm. That was a 3.8

It’s just that they’re really sensitive.

Loach Critter 1: “I’ve got a feeling the ground’s going to start shaking soon.”

Loach Critter 2: “Yeah, I got that too, but I don’t think it’s going to be big.”

Loach Critter 1: “Should we tell the Boss?”

Loach Critter 2: “Naw, why worry him?”

Loach Critter 1: “Good point. I need my beauty rest.”

Loach Critter 2: “Zzzzz”.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say it’s because the cat is 16 and the dog is 13. They just can’t be bothered anymore.

Tonight we went to go eat at a restaurant in Whitehouse Station so we could see the devastation for ourselves.

If anyone is interested there have been 159 quakes in the area since the big one. There was a 2.6 this morning. I slept through it.