5.8 Quake near D.C.

[WayAbvPar]

Saw this on Twitter and it made me chuckle-

Keith Olbermann
Irony: 3/14 Eric Cantor pushes for cuts to US Geological Survey, NWS, NOAA. 8/23 5.9 quake felt by 1/3 of us. Epicenter: Cantor's district

[Ghambit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AnNlyDcySY

Gonna see a lot of this type stuff around here with the way things are constructed.  I'm supposed to go into Olde Town today actually and I'm gonna guess some of the places there will probably be shut in.

Still waiting to here how the house near Mineral faired.

[CmdrSlack]

Place my wife is working at got evacuated due to potential gas leaks.

I thought I felt it here in Illinois, but it turned out to be an actual uh, "gas leak."

[JWIV]

Was a bit more interesting since the building I was in (Ashburn, VA) actually did the nice little sway and shake thing thing.  Just enough to freak everyone the fuck out, but not enough for an immediate stampede.  Regardless, everyone still got kicked out of the building.
 

[Merusk]

It's obviously God punishing America for not being on the right Christian path.

Funny you should say that.  The national cathedral took some not so insignificant damage, it seems.  The spires fell and the central tower is reported to be leaning.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/23/quake.landmarks.developments/

Those mocking in California should remember the soils conditions are vastly different on the East Coast.  The large amount of sand will make the soil liquify with less vibration than the loam & clay at the foothills of the Rocky Mtns. 

[Nevermore]

They can't hear you.  They're too busy being smug.

[Ingmar]

Huge parts of the Bay Area are liquefaction zones, actually:

http://gis.abag.ca.gov/website/LiquefactionCGS/

EDIT: Found some pictures of the damage to the National Cathedral:

Crack in flying buttress: http://ow.ly/i/gb6b
Damaged pinnacle http://ow.ly/i/gb57 (basically the tip broke off and shifted a bit, on 2 of the other corners it broke off and fell all the way: http://ow.ly/i/gb4K)

[Cheddar]

Just felt it, ran out the building like a kid. Someone needs to tell the earthquake this is the wrong coast.

Earthquake, hurricane, So much for nags head this weekend.

( Hampton roads, VA, if your curious, also know it was felt as far as VA beach )

Yup, in Hampton also and we felt it.  Pretty wild.

[Strazos]

When we felt it up in Arlington, my thoughts of what it could be were approximately:

1) Someone moving heavy equipment through the hallways
2) Plane crash
3) Massive explosion/industrial accident
4) Terrorist attack
5) ...Earthquake? In VA?

[TripleDES]

Yeah, I went through 2 quakes while living out in Northern California and I can concur, but around here in Pittsburgh, especially in my office, people were literally freaked out. They were actually a bit annoyed I was not more amped by it and to be honest, I was walking back to my desk and did not really feel a thing.

Unless it caused mad destruction and death, I don't see what's there to be stressed about, to begin with. Some people. That's how the fucking planet works, deal with it. Not green. --edit: And yeah, we had a six on the scale where I live in Europe a couple of years ago, too. It was mentioned casually on the news that day.

[Merusk]

Was a shallow & long quake. We felt it in Ohio, apparently, though I didn't feel a thing downtown.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I went through 2 quakes while living out in Northern California and I can concur, but around here in Pittsburgh, especially in my office, people were literally freaked out. They were actually a bit annoyed I was not more amped by it and to be honest, I was walking back to my desk and did not really feel a thing.

Unless it caused mad destruction and death, I don't see what's there to be stressed about, to begin with. Some people. That's how the fucking planet works, deal with it. Not green. --edit: And yeah, we had a six on the scale where I live in Europe a couple of years ago, too. It was mentioned casually on the news that day.

There is something extremely unsettling when the earth, which generally stays still and you take for granted, starts shaking. I do not enjoy it, even though I've only been in baby ones that do nothing more than make my cats unhappy.

For me there's always this initial "wait, what the fuck?" when one happens, although now I will remember to shuffle towards a door and away from a window of it's more than one good shake. Strongest one I've felt was a 4.something that was centered in San Jose. During a Karazhan raid. I enjoyed typing "afk earthquake."  

[NiX]

I wouldnt say it's a non-story, because what's now going to happen is they're going to re-evaluate the "smartness" of putting those reactors there (in a quake-prone area) and building them in that fashion.  As quoted, this quake was at the limit of its construction.

What's now going to happen is a bunch of people will point to Japan and say "SEE! IT CAN HAPPEN HERE TOO!"

A lot of people will laugh and it'll be forgotten in a week.

[Xuri]

I felt it all the way up here in Toronto.  I thought it was my imagination but then heard about it on the radio.

Also, downtown Montreal. At first it was all "ugh, I don't feel too well - bits of the world are starting to move around/swim before my eyes" - which in hindsight was kinda suspicious considering I had been feeling perfectly fine up until that point - then eventually I saw mentions of earthquakes and godzilla-invasions and nuclear powerplant shutdown protocols and such, and wheels finally started turning in my head. Anyway, that was my earthquake story posted and now promptly forgotten! First one since I was..uh.. six or something.

[Margalis]

A 5.8 quake is major news on the east coast. In California it's a Wednesday.

[luckton]

My mind is already  over the number of FB posts attributing the quake to 'our founding fathers rolling in their grave over (insert the political party you hate here)'. 

[Mrbloodworth]

The Washington monument cracked, look what they say about that.

[Teleku]

Heh, had a 3.6 last night here in Oakland at around 12 AM.  I thought somebody had accidently slammed their big rig into the side of the building.  Then backed up and did it again.  Only found out it was an earth quake this morning.   

Then we just had another minor one about 15 minutes ago that shook our desks at the office a bit.  Earthquakes are fun!

[Sheepherder]

The joys of living on the precambrian shield, where the earth stays where you left it and only causes a few genetic abnormalities due to excessively high uranium content.