It was impossible to go back to sleep after the 5.2 earthquake shook the bed for at least 20 seconds. National news started reporting the moderate tremor immediately. But we shouldn't be too surprised by the seismic activity. Once the mighty Mississippi reversed direction because of a devastating earthquake.
UPDATE: 4.6 aftershock.
NG article is here.
Woke us up, too.
woke my wife up, who woke me up.
Oh, IP, that's an AP feed on the NG story. For a moment I thought they were on top of things. :)
Joan's bed shook for 20 seconds? The quake lasted only 5 seconds. What was going on at Joan's?
Woke us up. I talked to some of my neighbors and they slept through it. My wife heard on the news that Green Bay felt it, which seems rather odd.
Woke up - there is just not quite anything else that feels the same as that. I was just amazed to be feeling that in Illinois!
Immediately after I didn't see anything in the papers yet (and my internet skillz are not the best at 4:30 AM either) so was just hoping that it was a smaller quake close by, rather than some huge disaster farther away. Luckily, it was.
I remember waking up around 4:30 AM, and the puppy was awake too and insisted on going out to potty. Someone was up at one of the neighbors' houses too, so maybe the quake woke her up.
It woke me up. I felt the house swaaaaaaay, then shake shake shake. My husband thought I was nuts when I told him. He slept right through it.
Woke up, though it was a really strong wind, went right back to sleep. Then this morning my desk was a mess!
We all slept through the earthquake itself. What woke me up was the cat reacting to the earthquake by jumping into the bed and hiding under the comforter, plastered to my leg.
Aftershock?
(10:15am)
Aftershock? I think?
aftershock!
I felt those (2 of them) also DaveM.
I'm in Chicago and I just felt that too!
Yes - just felt it too.
Aha! Kev thought I was pulling his leg just now! I'm sitting in my basement in a chair and it was moving. Kind of tough to lay that one off on a truck going by out on the street...
Laura
Imani and Co. already have launched an investigation as to whether the tremors and the aftershocks affected all neighborhoods equally.
LOL!
US Geologic Survey says there's been activity today:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/Maps/US2/38.40.-89.-87_eqs.php
Laura
I just talked to someone in St. Louis who felt the aftershock, too.
Felt like another one just now.
I thought I heard one too at about the same time (my interior wall hanging was making noise, as well as my window). Nothing on the USGS website, though. Maybe we have earthquakes on the brain.
That would not explain stuff on my desk shaking again.
Visit the website of the Illinois State Geological Survey (www.isgs.uiuc.edu) to see a siesmogram for the seismograph right here in Urbana, Illinois.
Dan, I believe those are vibrations from the tram.
I was awake and lying in bed when it hit, as I had been awakened a few minutes earlier from a muscle spasm in one of my legs. I could hear it coming. It sounded like a distant rumble of thunder, and it kept getting louder and louder as it got closer Once the shaking started, it lasted about 4-5 seconds.
I live within several blocks of Joan. Not sure about the 20 seconds thing... Now, from the time that I first heard the rumbling, to the time it was over, now that seemed like about 20 seconds.
Perhaps someone can explain the thunder sound and what caused that..................
Ish... low frequency vibrations playing the ground itself like a drum.
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Glock21 Op/Ed
"Oh, IP, that's an AP feed on the NG story. For a moment I thought they were on top of things. :)"
Yes, I was sure the NG would be out seeking comments at 5 a.m., and then undercutting their print product by publishing a self-written article on the Web, where advertising numbers are much smaller.
Dr. Ron Paul opposes earthquakes and has consistently voted down all legislation that would support earthquakes! RON PAUL!!!!
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"Another Anon with a worthless opinion" - Run4cvrlib on 2/2/08
"I guess I have little tolerance for people who just attack people just to do it and give no justification." - Run4cvrlib on 2/2/08
Does anyone know how the average buildings in the area stand up to earthquakes and aftershocks? Are there building codes in place to withstand quakes? Just curious.
I thought it was my cat jumping on my bed. I went right back to sleep. No big deal,
I'm not sure, but I think there are now stricter standards on some buildings out of concern for earthquakes. I believe that the standard for the new up and coming clock and bell tower increased the cost of the project. So on the positive side, after it is built, there won't be a danger of it collapsing on innocent bystanders.
Green_Cutip - I'm worried about Midwest buildings in an earthquake. If the local "big one" hits, the issue is all the masonry buildings in St. Louis. Last time they were hit bad, things were far more rural.
In LA, brick buildings are against code as far as I know. The main idea is you want buildings to sway, not be rigid. Big new buildings (in the US and also in Japan) have counterweights at the top and sliding rails on the bottom, to let them sway in earthquakes without breaking.
In Japan of course the big cities all were burnt, then since they've tried to be earthquake sensitive, there too not so much brick buildings and the very new ones have counterweights. Even then, in 1995 the big Kobe earthquake, some expressways fell over, they learned from it.
Tokyo of course was burnt by the Americans on March 10, 1945, but it was a young city then, because it was ALSO burnt on September 1st 1923 already, an earthquake hit around noon, and at the time most houses had open fire cooking hearths, so the city caught fire and there were firestorms. My composition teacher in high school was 8 years old at the time, and he told me (when I was asking about disasters) about how his family ran to a stone walled compound and his friend got sucked out by the fire tornado and died. He taught at my high school from 1942. Guy was OLD. But very, very cool :)
There's a reason Japan has Godzilla, after all. Anyway, since 1923, September 1 is disaster preparedness day, that's the day everyone eats their disaster food (cup ramen, MREs, whatever) and buys new.
I visited Kobe in 2000, there is a park that has some cement walls similar to those on the UIUC engineering campus with those cement balls on the end of the walls, but far bigger, anyway, there's one ball the size is about up to my waist, it's rolled out into a field far from the wall by the earthquake, it was left there and now has a plaque next to it saying that's why it's there. Lots of energy.
But yes, in the US midwest there are a lot of buildings that will likely collapse in any serious earthquake. If the "big one" hits the San Madrid, it will be scary. I'm happy that that did not happen today.
Is that the same earthquake where they blamed Korean Japanese for the fires and lynched a bunch of people? Pretty grim.
"There's a reason Japan has Godzilla, after all."
"Gojira! Gojira!"
One of my guilty pleasures. All time best movie monster, ever, bar none. King of the Monsters.
When I was growing up, my mom was a professional keyboard player, and spent a fair number of nights out of the house. My dad would take us to the drive-in to see whatever awful science fiction was showing at the time. The best ones were always the Japanese monster movies.
Now, whenever Laura has to be out for an evening at a meeting, Darcy and I order pizza and watch old Japanese sci-fi. She loves the scene in "Ghidorah" where Rodan and Godzilla are playing volleyball with giant boulders.
I have a subtitled copy of the original 1954 Japanese release of "Gojira," before they added the stupid scenes with Raymond Burr. It's an amazing film, but I haven't shown it to Darcy yet. It's still a little dark for a ten year old.
Sorry, didn't mean to change the subject. Can't help it. I love the big mug. Carry on...
My geologists friends tell me this is just a sign of the soon (in geologic time) to be mountain formation along the Mississippi Valley.
Xian, some did, yeah. Disasters tend to bring out the inner racist in people where there is one. Back during the black plagues in Europe some people accused Jews of poisoning wells, similar grim phenomenon.
Definitely not a pretty time.
A while ago they showed some Gojira movies at the Art, it was pretty cool :)
"A while ago they showed some Gojira movies at the Art, it was pretty cool :)"
I can't believe I missed that! I haven't seen the real thing on the big screen since "Godzilla 1985," and I spent most of that movie wishing Raymond Burr would get stepped on. (Of course, I'm not counting the American 1998 film, which, while quite a bit of fun, was clearly not Gojira.)
I was led to believe, by the story of the three little pigs, that masonry structures are best. I tend to believe fairy tales over blog posts.