Earthquake in the Southeast US (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

I have the early morning 6 a.m. shift this week, so I was up at 5 a.m. and noticed that the whole house was shaking, and for some reason, I thought my cats were playing tricks on me, so I hit the snooze button on the alarm clock for 9 more precious minutes of sleep. Then I woke up and the radio news was reporting that we experienced an earthquake that measured 4.5 on the Richter scale (a mild earthquake).

This was just a bizarre way to start the morning.

More details: The epicenter was Fort Payne, Alabama. We felt it here in Atlanta.

 

[Jay H]

I just want to say "I feel your Payne"

Is it me or do all earthquakes seem to occur early in the wee hours of morning. The last few earthquakes I recall in my area were all small ones occuring around 4am. It's like Mother Earth is also waking up and rumbling out of it's astral bed.

Jay

 

[Bill_D]

I happened to be awake when it hit.

Atlanta takes it on the chin from the our citizens with Northern origins when we get a warning of a bit of frozen precip that shuts down the whole city. Now the Californians will be on our case concerning this tremor.

We laugh at them pulling over to side of the road during some of our rain/lighting storms though.

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

Southern cities usually don't have a sufficient fleet of snowplows or stockpiles of sand and roadsalt, so whenever frozen precip happens it really can shut down the city. Better to stay home than to go out on the roads and encounter people who have little experience driving in those conditions anyway.

On the other hand, we get to laugh when Northern cities experience temps in the 90s for a few days in a row and they call it a "heat wave".

Anyway, I live in the Maconga area, I was sound asleep when the tremor happened and I didn't feel a thing. Several years ago I spent a month in L.A. one week, and whenever tremors happened during the night they would wake me, but I always thought it was just a big truck driving by until I was asked the next morning "Did you feel the tremor?"

 

[Mark Brewer]

Up here in the Northwest we've had 3 small ones in the past few days.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

I thought my cats were playing tricks on me

Fluffy Pumpkin jumping on the bed is more like a magnitude 5.3.....

The magnitude 7 quake here in 1989 occured at about 5 PM during the world series.

 

[Van Patton]

Up in Chattanooga, I was awakend at 5 AM when our house started shaking violently. It was one cool experience and the first for me.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I read elsewhere if this earthquake was sufficient for people to start rioting in Atlanta.

Since I was still groggy when I felt the earth shake, I half-dreamt that my cats had learned how to run my HT, and were watching the rocket launch to Apollo 13 and had my subwoofer was working overtime.

 

[Carlo_M]

4.5??? You sissies! (coming from someone who lives in L.A. and experienced the '89 SF quake - lucky me!)

Seriously, quakes in parts of the country unused to it can be a frightening experience and I can empathize w/ you all. And yes, a lot seem to happen in the morning for whatever reason. The '94 Northridge was at 4:31am, I happened to wake up 1 minute before it hit for some unknown reason, and to top it all off...it was my birthday.

Hope you all are okay out there. And hopefully that was the big one and not a foreshock. Any aftershocks should be smaller in magnitude (but not always, some come real close to the original).

 

[Mike Slade]

I live in Columbus, GA and was also awakened this morning by this quake. My roommate was supposed to be leaving this morning about the same time it hit and I just thought to myself "what is he doing in there?" and then I went back to sleep. I only found out later when people at work were talking about it, that it was an earthquake.

 

[Steve_Tk]

I seriously jumped out of the bed and looked outside. I thought it was a Tornado in Atlanta again. Saw the wind was not blowing, thought I was crazy, and went back to sleep.

Found out that morning it was a 4.9. I know the largest in American history is 9 something, so 4s must be pretty small. Still shook the whole house.

If Atlanta got hit with a big one it would be one hell of a disaster. No one here has Earthquake endorsements on our insurance.

 

[David Preston]

You know whats crazy is it was felt almost state wide from my parents in west Ga to my wife's parents in Dacula Ga . I live 9 miles away from Dacula and did not feel one thing I was up cleaning out the garage at that time and I'm sure I would have felt it. My wife is a super lite sleeper and she was not waken by it. That seems weird to me.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

For comparison, this is what a 9.2 looks like:


(Alaska 1964)

Edit: updated photo link

 

[Jack Briggs]

Carlo, Dennis: These Georgians don't know the half of what an earthquake's like!

The 1994 Northridge 6.8-level funride happened in the wee hours. I was earlier awakened by the noise of a prostitute haggling with a potential john outside my window (an economic issue). Just as I had decided to get up and head for the kitchen to get a sip of water, kaboom!

 

[Lew Crippen]

kaboom!

Probably what the John was expecting.

 

[Holadem]

I was earlier awakened by the noise of a prostitute haggling with a potential john outside my window (an economic issue). Just as I had decided to get up and head for the kitchen to get a sip of water, kaboom!

Gosh, spice this up a little bit and you have one hell of a story: "A couple of years ago when I was backpacking in Nepal, I woke up to the sound of a prostitue haggling with..."

--
Holadem

 

[Ben Seibert]

Slept completely through it. I'm usually a heavy sleeper but I had awoken around 4, so I'm surprised this din't wake me. (How's that for a cross post?)

 

[Mark Brewer]

I remember the spring Break quake of '93 here in OR. My roommate was hagling with a prostitute about cost .

He was on the top bunk of the bunk beds in our colleg suite and I was on the bottom. :b . We didn't go anywhere for spring break cause we were both losers at the time.
The bed started shaking and I yelled at him "Chris stop it you jerk". I looked up to see him looking down with terror on his face. My fiance (now my wife) called me in a panic so I had to go calm her down. But just the night before she was telling me how we need to find an apartment the is up to earthquake codes. I laughed at her, then she said I told you so....

 

[Patrick Sun]

I still think it's funny that my initial reaction to the earthquake was one of annoyance (since I was just about to wake up and wanted just a bit more sleep).

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Monty python voice: "he won't haggle!"