Dc Quake - Did You Feel It?

[Mr. Sea Otter]

I felt it for sure. Our building was eventually evacuated and we were sent home. Lots and lots of jokes about people being so scared the crapped their pants. I saw a guy on the bus ride home who wither spilled a pit of water on his lap or....

Personally I didn't think it was that big of a deal, but I grew up in California. However, there were a few picture frames knocked over at home and stuff, so it was bigger than even I thought.

Anybody else have stories?

[babyrz99]

This was my first earthquake experience and it was pretty wild. I am visiting DC for meetings and we had to evacuate our building. Started as a slight shake, then got pretty strong for a few seconds and people started pouring out of buildings. There were some similar jokes about evacuating bowels while evacuating the building

[anondl]

I felt it here in Cary NC

[:dlb]

negative in western illinois

[beallucanb]

Quite a few people here felt it, buildings swayed, not too many tall buildings here, but some did feel them move enough to evacuate.

I was in my truck on the interstate or in Scranton at the time of the quake, but I didn't feel anything, my next door neighbor was home and she said she felt nothing also.

When I got home 15 miles south of where I was, the only thing out of place in my house was a few small things fell off a shelf in my garage, and the things that fell were made of foam so nothing broke.

[Yvhuce]

Huh... Didn't even know it happened... I wish those affected by it well.

[lil_angel]

I work on the top floor of my building here in DC and this was my first experience with an earthquake. It started out as a little shaking which we sometimes get when they are doing work on the building. A few seconds later, my office was swaying at least a foot in either direction...wild ride.

I was on the phone with a vendor when it happened and I said to him, "ummm, I think we are having an earthquake, I've got to go...I'll call you back." and I slammed down the phone. The entire event that was 'feelable' was about 10 seconds. The news claims that it was around 45 seconds total.

Of course, like everyone else here, we evacuated the building, even though there weren't any fire alarms or anything to tell us to do so. Of course it was over by then. The paniced people ran down the fire escape. I took my time and gathered my bag and took the elevator down.

When I got outside, that is when the erie feeling actually set in. I was in NYC for 9/11 and this had that same feeling about it. 10s of thousands of people out on the street wondering around confused. Some were looking up at my building. When I looked, I found out that the building had cracked from the sway. The obvioulsy closed the building until structural engineers could look at it and sent us all home. I don't know the outcome yet, but I assume it was only surface cracks and we will be working this morning. I'm the first one in for my company so, I get to send out the email letting everyone know.

[square_duck]

Welcome to "our" world for those of us on the west coast My brother said there were a lot of tweets going out after the DC quake and one of the funnier ones was " Pfft...5.9 quakes are what we sue to stir our coffee with in the morning" LOL

Anyways, It is an odd experience, when the (supposedly) solid ground under you starts to move I have been through numerous quakes (the last and worst was the Northridge one, where I was a the time the scales registered a 9.0...THAT was fun!)

The big problem back east for things like this is all the buildings are NOT built to any kind of real earthquake code like they are here in L.A and Japan etc. There is lots of bricks and concrete, over there and a 'small to moderate event like this can cause a LOT of damage, where the same event here does very little damage and most people just go about their day etc. Northridge was the exception, being 7+ and tore up freeways and destroyed bridges and such.

The crack you mentioned could be superficial damage to a facade or be more structural in nature, it depends on how old the building is and it's construction. Like I said, most buildings on the east coast and in DC are not built for any kind of earthquake activity. Had this quake been larger, or the size of the Northridge one, it might have very well destroyed a good chunk of the whole city

Something to think about,

Glad everyone is OK and had an 'interesting' experience.

[Loveable_guy]

Sure did, i was rocking with my stero and JBL studio series tower series speakers thinking what great speakers these are.

[Fakename4me]

Yes, I felt it. Shook my house. Made me run outside.

[lil_angel]

My work building was of course fine. The cracks were just on the surface...it was back to business as normal yesterday.

[willnotwill]

I'm about 30 miles from the epicenter and sitting there on the phone wearing just a diaper when it hit. The whole second floor shook, the book cases were rattling. I've been through a few in California, so it only took me a second to grasp what was happening.