I feel the earth move under my feet

December 9, 2003 1:39 PM

4.5 earthquake in Virginia.
posted by SuzySmith (28 comments total)

Here in Colonial Beach, it was a rattle of the windows. Which is a normal occurrence as we're down river from NSWCDD that does a lot of large gun testing.

Anyone else?
posted by SuzySmith at 1:45 PM on December 9, 2003

Speaking as a Southern Californian: So?
posted by eyeballkid at 1:46 PM on December 9, 2003

Hey, we're not used to earthquakes here, but we do live on a major fault line.
posted by SuzySmith at 1:49 PM on December 9, 2003

Charlottesville was a good rumble. Desk shook, stuff fell over. My first earthquake
posted by AaRdVarK at 1:52 PM on December 9, 2003

Me, I blame Dick Cheney...
posted by jpburns at 1:52 PM on December 9, 2003

Didn't feel anything on Capitol Hill. Too bad!
posted by MrMoonPie at 1:53 PM on December 9, 2003

I felt my building jiggle, and the stuff on my bookshelves rattled a bit. I thought it must be an earthquake, but then dismissed the thought as preposterous.
posted by crunchland at 1:54 PM on December 9, 2003

Eyeballkid: "Speaking as a Southern Californian: So?"

Speaking as a Texan who has lived through zero earthquakes but more tornadoes than he cares to remember: So?
posted by ZachsMind at 1:56 PM on December 9, 2003

Speaking as a Southern Californian: So?
heh...as one who lived in a known "earthquake state"; enjoy hearing from the other side of the fence. Why? because the other side of the fence has many misconceptions about earthquakes. Rather have an earthquakes than a tornado...at least you know your safe outside in an open area.
posted by thomcatspike at 1:59 PM on December 9, 2003

"my natural disaster penis is bigger than yours. neener neener!"
posted by quonsar at 2:00 PM on December 9, 2003

"The Fairfax County Police Department is being flooded with calls."

It never even occurred to me to call the police.
posted by crunchland at 2:05 PM on December 9, 2003

Definitely felt some rumblings here in Richmond. I'm used to occasional rumblings from the boiler room below me, but this was sustained for quite a while.
posted by emelenjr at 2:13 PM on December 9, 2003

Here on the west end of Richmond, it was pretty uneventful - a few seconds of rumbling and mild vibration. I stopped by a couple of folks' cubes and the response was "Yeah, that was an earthquake. Whaddya know."

Of course, as the owner of a 140 year old house, I am a little concerned that something shook loose - other than paint.
posted by borkus at 2:15 PM on December 9, 2003

whoa- I thought my desk was shaking a little up here in Silver Spring, MD (just north of DC).
posted by gottabefunky at 2:29 PM on December 9, 2003

Earthquakes everywhere! Quick, everyone under your desks!
posted by 4easypayments at 2:35 PM on December 9, 2003

US Earthquakes in the past 7 days .... that blue box in Virginia looks kinda lonely.....
posted by anastasiav at 2:40 PM on December 9, 2003

We're talking lots about it on cvillenews.com, my Charlottesville news blog. It's the second quake from that exact fault at that exact depth and location in the past six months, and our fourth quake since 1998.
posted by waldo at 2:44 PM on December 9, 2003

"my natural disaster penis is bigger than yours. neener neener!"

It's not the girth of the earth but the shake of the quake.
posted by liam at 3:00 PM on December 9, 2003

Eh, it was just the universe's reaction to the Omnibus Appropriations Bill.
posted by dejah420 at 3:00 PM on December 9, 2003

My hometown is about 20 miles south of Richmond, and there was an earthquake there about ten years ago, too. I woke up to my bookcase toppling over and was convinced it was a ghost.
posted by Zosia Blue at 3:17 PM on December 9, 2003

My brother was living in Sunnyvale, and until that Northridge quake in '94, we had been through a larger quake than he had ever encountered. And where were we? Why, central Illinois, of course! (Lawrenceville, Illinois, 1987, magnitude 5.0)

We were living in an a crotchety old rental with a brick(!!) foundation, and it felt just like a train going by, but the waves kept getting bigger. Tossed about half a gallon of water out of our fish tank. Disorienting, to say the least.

I remember thinking at the time it was happening "If this next wave is as much bigger than this wave was than the one before it, well, we are going to be in trouble". But that next wave never came.

And then we had a tornado touch down a mile away 2 days later.

Nature don't scare us. Often.
posted by dglynn at 3:43 PM on December 9, 2003

whoa- I thought my desk was shaking a little up here in Silver Spring, MD (just north of DC).

Yeah, I'm in Silver Spring too. I felt the house vibrate and heard things on my bookshelves rattling. At first I thought I had imagined it, because none of my friends felt it at the time.
posted by puffin at 4:01 PM on December 9, 2003

There was a less severe quake in the same place about 8 months ago. I also got a good bit of rumbling here in Charlottesville. Kinda fun, actually.
posted by mbd1mbd1 at 4:47 PM on December 9, 2003

Beware. It's not California that's going to fall into the ocean, it's all the rest of America.

Thank goodness for the 49th parallel. I'm safe!
posted by five fresh fish at 11:02 PM on December 9, 2003

Mr Browning has a prediction...
posted by drezdn at 1:14 AM on December 10, 2003

I felt the rumble through the floor of my office, then heard the cables in the elevator shaft behind my office clanging about. Think I'll be using the stairs from now on...
posted by Irontom at 3:40 AM on December 10, 2003

I finally live through an actual earthquake and I miss the whole thing! Nothing moved in Georgetown as far as I can tell. I'm terribly disappointed.
posted by CunningLinguist at 6:05 AM on December 10, 2003

I was playing Half Life at the time. For an absurd second, I thought a bull squid had bumped up against my house. Then I thought that my furnace had finally given up the ghost. Earthquake? Nah...

[tommyspoon turns on the news]

Oh. 4.5, huh? Anybody hurt? No? Good.

[tommyspoon turns off news, returns to Half Life]

Damn Bull Squid....
posted by tommyspoon at 6:32 AM on December 10, 2003