# Shakin' the US Southeast
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [April 29, 2003, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927 "2003-04-29T15:29:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2003, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/1 "2003-04-29T15:29:43Z")
Just 3 days and 10 minutes after [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=179809) early morning wakeup, I get another one. A [4.9 magnitude earthquake.](http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1254906&nav=0RaPFW21) Just across the line from Rome, Georgia. (About 100 miles away.) First quake while in a waterbed. Really wavy.
The local news didn’t report anything for about 20 minutes. And then they were reporting that it was in New Madrid. (Which would have meant bye-bye St. Louis.) CNN didn’t report anything for 30 minutes.
Mrs. FtG was up and in the kitchen. The cabinet doors started rattling. She thought we had rats. Rats? Sheesh.
Anybody get really shaken up?
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### Author:  [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2003, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/2 "2003-04-29T15:35:59Z")
It was all over the news here in Knoxville this morning. Apparently enough people felt it around here that they started calling into the station.
The only thing I know is that I woke up around 5 (EST), looked at the clock, decided it was too early to be up and went back to sleep. I don’t know what exactly woke me up then, so I can’t even say I felt it.
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### Author:  [@Yossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yossarian)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2003, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/3 "2003-04-29T15:57:57Z")
Here’s the official USGS page on it:
[http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/neic\_teak.html](http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/neic_teak.html)
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### Author:  [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2003, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/4 "2003-04-29T16:15:47Z")
We didn’t notice a thing here.
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### Author:  [@DeVena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeVena)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2003, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/5 "2003-04-29T16:53:01Z")
Noticed it. About 250 miles away - on a waterbed. Minimal shaking then 4 cats all vying to be in my arms at the same time. “Love me now!!! Gods coming for kitty cats!!”
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### Author:  [@Max\_Carnage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Carnage)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2003, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/6 "2003-04-29T20:04:29Z")
In Nashville, I didn’t know anything had happened till I read it on the web. What upsets me is dogs are supposed to notice these things, right? Well mine just let me sleep. I think she’s trying to kill me.
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### Author:  [@Greywolf73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greywolf73)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2003, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/7 "2003-04-29T20:19:29Z")
Yep. It woke me up at 5 AM. Being half-asleep, I thought my daughter was jumping up and down on her bed in her room ( I have no idea why I thought an 8-year-old jumping up and down would shake the whole house but as I said, I was half-asleep and it sounded like a good theory at the time).
It rattled the windows and shook the furniture a little bit.
Reminded me very much of a sonic boom without the _boom_.
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### Author:  [@japatlgt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/japatlgt)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2003, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/8 "2003-04-29T20:53:37Z")
Ditto here. Woke up, looked at the clock, thought “what the hell I’m I doing awake?”, went back to sleep.
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### Author:  [@JessEnigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JessEnigma)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2003, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/9 "2003-04-29T21:02:50Z")
I didn’t even know there was an earthquake, though an acquaintance of mine felt it. She woke up about 5 AM, thinking a poltergeist was shaking her bed. Fortunately for her, someone told her there’d been an earthquake before she announced her newfound belief in ghosts to everyone.
Actually, that could’ve been what woke me up in the middle of the night, but since I didn’t check my clock, I suppose I’ll never know.
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### Author:  [@whiterabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whiterabbit)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2003, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/10 "2003-04-29T22:09:00Z")
_slight hijack_ I was on a waterbed during the Northridge quake in '94. It was one helluva ride, but at least I wasn’t in danger of being thrown off.
A 4.9? That’s a nice ride. Wheeeeee!
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### Author:  [@Archergal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archergal)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2003, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/11 "2003-04-30T01:34:04Z")
It woke us\* up last night. Since we’d recently had a tree to fall (and strike a neighbor’s house a glancing blow) we figured that’s what had happened again, somehow. We even got up and walked around the house to find the “fallen tree.”
Needless to say, we didn’t find one. My dad called me this morning and told me it had been an earthquake.
That’s the first one that I can ever remember experiencing. They’re not very common in the SE USA.
\*Me and the SO. The dogs apparently slept through it at our house also.
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### Author:  [@John\_Carter\_of\_Mars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Carter_of_Mars)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2003, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/12 "2003-04-30T03:42:31Z")
The cat started yowling, so I threw a shoe in her general direction and went back to sleep. Didn’t find out until the morning news that there had been a quake. Oh, well.
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### Author:  [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2003, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/13 "2003-04-30T06:41:05Z")
I was awake at 5:00am (what? I’m a nightowl) and I felt it. It lasted maybe a minute or two and not expecting to feel an earthquake in Tennessee just shrugged it off, thinking a heavy garbage truck had drove by or something.
My mom told me about it when I got up later. _Oh, that’s what it was!_
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### Author:  [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2003, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/14 "2003-04-30T09:23:20Z")
Looking at this morning’s [Atlanta Journal-Constitution](http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/0403/30quake.html), I had a good laugh over the survey they’re running. Apparently 54% of those voting came to the conclusion that it was the end of the world. :rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2003, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/15 "2003-04-30T17:41:11Z")
“I’m comin’ ta join ya, 'lizabeth!”
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### Author:  [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2003, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shakin-the-us-southeast/171927/16 "2003-04-30T18:44:05Z")
I slept through it.