Earthquake! (Page 2)

I felt it clearly in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago, and it felt like an earthquake I experienced in California. However, my brain said it was much more likely that it was an accident or my neighbors getting wild or me having a seizure. Earthquakes don't happen in the Midwest very often. My brain, as it often is at 4:45 a.m., was wrong. I turned on the radio to confirm I was not nuts.

I realize a 5.2 may make Californians yawn, but the building codes in flyover country do not account for an earthquake. I am surprised there was not more damage, but I guess it was a gentle 5.2. I think some quakes of the same magnitude may cause more damage depending on their type of movement.

Since it was at 4:36am I slept right through it.  So did the wife, kids, and the inlaws dog.

i didn't feel anything, but at 4:38, my bird started FREAKING OUT. i had to go calm him down, and i didn't hear about the earthquake 'til i talked to my sister this morning. She's in STL and felt it.

I'm south of Louisville. I just hit snooze and dozed back off. I've never experienced an earthquake before. Scared the crap out of me. I thought it was a violent wind storm at first and then my whole body was shaking. I could hear the windows rattling and it felt like someone was shaking the entire bed.

I was at work during a shift change when it happened. I work in a water treatment plant on the Ohio in Louisville. I thought a pump had blown apart, we had the news on and the news station folks were freaking out so we knew it was probably a quake. It was shaking the plant for a good 30 seconds.

Edited by timdude 2008-04-19 11:33 PM

I woke up just a moment before the earthquake. My husband was snoring off and on... I was waiting for another big snore so I could kick him, when I heard a huge thump - I thought something HUGE landed on the roof. Then I heard another thump (both on the east side of the house) - I grabbed my husbands arm and said WTF was THAT?! Another huge thump on the side of the house and then the bed started shaking like crazy. I said OMG it's an earthquake!!! I remembered from my geography class at Southern Illinois University that "they" were predicting a MAJOR earthquake, so I flew out of bed and grabbed my daughter. I thought my husband would grab my son, but he was too out of it to respond. The house stopped shaking, but I could hear wine bottles rattling for another 15 seconds or so - and I prayed that our new 50" plasma wouldn't fall over, lol.

Now that's it's over and there was no damage I can say that it was a pretty cool experience!

I couldn't go back to sleep after it was over, so I turned on the news to watch some news coverage. I thought for a second about working out - but I decided to go back to bed instead