Midwest earthquake??

[old_tony]

Just sitting on my couch getting some old NYPD Blues out of my TiVo tuner and the entire house really shook at 4:39 a.m. CDT.

The New Madrid faultline is the closes one I'm familiar with in the center of the country. Anyone else out there feel it? Or were you all sleeping like normal people should.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/04/0412_060412_earthquake.html

 

[BYH]

Are you sure you didn't just fart?

(of course that is said with the hope that this is just a quirk and not some Richter scale event)

 

[doubledown68]

YES... I felt it too... started a thread on anything goes.. woke me up

 

[doubledown68]

I'd take a tornado any day over that... and I felt just a wiggle of it.

 

[buckweaver]

My girlfriend makes an outstanding point:

Buildings in the Midwest aren't nearly as prepared for earthquake damage as the ones out here in Cali. This quake could cause significant damage, just because of where it's located. Hope y'all are safe out there.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

I blame Tom Crean.

 

[Rosie]

I'd take a tornado any day over that... and I felt just a wiggle of it.

Or a raging blizzard.

Back in 1989, it took me three weeks to call a place in California which had been affected by the World Series earthquake. When I was finally able to contact with this business and set stuff up for work, the conversation turned to the earthquake.

He couldn't understand how I could live where it snowed.

I couldn't understand how he would take the earth, opening up under your feet -- without warning -- and possibly swallowing you up, over a snow storm.

Especially how damaging that quake was.

 

[buckweaver]

Thing is, Rosie, y'all get snowstorms every year.

We get a damaging quake ... once in a generation. And only if you're near the major faults. The rest of the time, it's gorgeous. I'll take that any time.

 

[Rosie]

But at least we get fair warning when they're on the way.

And you can prepare for one. Plus, the chances of your home turning to rubble in a blizzard are virtually none.

Besides, it's tough to snowmobile without snow.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

But at least we get fair warning when they're on the way.

And you can prepare for one. Plus, the chances of your home turning to rubble in a blizzard are virtually none.

Besides, it's tough to snowmobile without snow.

Did the earth move last night, rosie?
It's TOO EARLY to go to my room. No fair!

 

[Rosie]

Nobody ever said life was fair.

 

[OnTheRiver]

Been updating our paper's site since about 4:45 a.m.

Shook like a mofo here ... it was a rolling quake ... like a train running past. Similar to the 2002 quake here.

 

[Big Buckin' agate_monkey]

I felt in the middle of Illinois.
It woke me up, but it's wasn't too bad. I thought the one in '04 felt worse.
I just wondered why the hell my bed was shaking. Then I went back to sleep. Damn earthquake.

 

[Italian_Stallion]

Holy ****. The center of that thing was only 80 miles from my mom's house. I'm about to call her. Sometimes, she doesn't wake up until 10 a.m. But I imagine she's awake now. I'm sure she's fine, but I didn't expect to watch a 22-inning baseball game, go to sleep at 4:30 a.m. and then wake up four hours later to learn about an earthquake near my hometown.

 

[Italian_Stallion]

Buds from the trees in my mom's yard are jammed into the screen on her bedroom window. They must've been tossed off the tree, which is a good 20 feet from the window. She's pretty sick, and she's a little irrational. She says she hasn't been up to look outside yet and that her stomach has been bothering her since the shake.

She heard something slamming into the front of the house, and she heard a crash. But she hasn't checked out the damage yet. She's going to provide me with a report soon. I checked my hometown paper's site, and they only have an AP brief. Decatur had nothing. Champaign has a story that says there weren't many reports of damage near the epicenter. But surely there are some reports yet to come in.

 

[User 1019]

5.4 won't begin to describe what's going to happen when the New Madrid "really" goes.

 

[OnTheRiver]

Buds from the trees in my mom's yard are jammed into the screen on her bedroom window. They must've been tossed off the tree, which is a good 20 feet from the window. She's pretty sick, and she's a little irrational. She says she hasn't been up to look outside yet and that her stomach has been bothering her since the shake.

She heard something slamming into the front of the house, and she heard a crash. But she hasn't checked out the damage yet. She's going to provide me with a report soon. I checked my hometown paper's site, and they only have an AP brief. Decatur had nothing. Champaign has a story that says there weren't many reports of damage near the epicenter. But surely there are some reports yet to come in.

We've got a reporter over at the epicenter right now ... it's about 45 minutes away. No serious damage reports from him yet. Some bricks off a building in New Harmony, which is across the Wabash River from the epicenter.

 

[Italian_Stallion]

Mom called. Undoubtedly, she didn't want to disappoint the SportsJournalists.com audience. She says further inspection shows that there's not any visible damage. A few cabinets were jostled around, and a downspout looks twisted. That's it.

My guess is that most of the damage will be from old brick buildings in the downtown areas. A lot of cities around there date to the 1870s. Many downtowns have buildings almost that old. My buddy works in one such downtown area. I'm going to call him soon.

 

[JBHawkEye]

Felt it here in SE Iowa. Building shook for about 15 seconds. Scary, because you don't know when it's going to end.

We've had a couple of tremors here before, but nothing like this.

Nice way to wake up at 4:45.

 

[steveu]

If your wife said "you made the earth move for me" Friday morning you gotta wonder if she was lying.

OK, OK: The scary thing is this was a fault near New Madrid. I don't think the Big One's coming any time soon down there, but this makes you wonder.