Today, I felt a vibration in my apartment. At first I thought it was a fan, then I realized it was an earthquake. Cool! We never get those around here -- except one last year. Oddly, that one centered in Gaithersburg, MD, where there is no fault. This one, however, happened in central Virginia, an area known to be seismically active.Last year's was only 3.6 on the Richter scale, barely enough to be felt. (I slept through it.) This one was a 5.8, and could be felt as far away as New York. It was the worst in Virgina in a century.
As it happens, I participated in a risk assessment of a Virginia shore site a few years ago that concluded:
"While central Virginia experiences some seismic activity, it is rare on the east coast. The chance of an earthquake of magnitude 4.75 or larger occurring in the next decade is only 0.1%."Yeah, well, 1 in 1000 is still a chance, right? And in central VA where it happened, it was 1 in a 100, so that's about right.
Videos in the playlist below:
- Video of impact on a liquor store in DC
- Video of severe rattling all the way up in NYC!
- Graphic showing waves rippling across the U.S.
- Graphic showing the spread of waves vs. Twitter reports about them
