5.8 Quake near D.C.

[Ghambit]

I'm on a boat just south of D.C. and it was strong enough to shake the boat.  On the damned water!  The marina is milky and bubbly (there are methane pockets down there actually)... I thought someone had rammed the damned boat.  Never felt a quake on a boat before.

Shallow quake epicenter was located near Mineral, VA.  This is actually where my boss' summer home is located and also the location of a very large nuke plant.  Stay tuned for this one.  

The DMV area is basically shut down right now btw.  Jesus.

[Ingmar]

5.8? This will be out of the news cycle in a day.

[Hawkbit]

Colorado just got hit as well.  I think it was in a remote area, but weird.  Plates are a shiftin'.

[Trippy]

5.8? This will be out of the news cycle in a day.

It would if it was in the SF Bay Area California. Anything below a 6 is a basically just a tremor here

[MuffinMan]

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

[Sky]

Co-workers talking about it right now. I didn't feel it, but several others did feel a slight tremor.

[Nevermore]

USGS is calling it 5.9.

Edit: nice topic edit. 

[Ghambit]

5.8? This will be out of the news cycle in a day.

Doubtful.  The capital is effectively shut down today now.  Everyone is outside.  Phreaky.  It was a powerful fuckin quake man, felt like an old wooden roller coaster (a quick shake, not a slow roll) - on a boat!  At one point I was like "make it stop!"  Didnt last long though, not even 30 seconds (as the news says.)

My biggest worry is the Lake Anna (summer vacation spot, nice homes, and nuke plant) and Richmond area.  That's ground zero.

[craan]

My first earthquake.  Luckily I was home and ran around catching/preventing stuff from falling.

I am woefully unprepared for a disaster and if it was zombies I would probably be dead by now.  Also its such an eerie feeling to feel a whole building swaying and being basically stuck.

[Mrbloodworth]

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 )

[Ingmar]

5.8? This will be out of the news cycle in a day.

It would if it was in the SF Bay Area California. Anything below a 6 is a basically just a tremor here

Big enough to get you over to the door frame, not big enough to remember a week later.

5.8? This will be out of the news cycle in a day.

Doubtful.  The capital is effectively shut down today now.  Everyone is outside.  Phreaky.  It was a powerful fuckin quake man, felt like an old wooden roller coaster (a quick shake, not a slow roll) - on a boat!  At one point I was like "make it stop!"  Didnt last long though, not even 30 seconds (as the news says.)

My biggest worry is the Lake Anna (summer vacation spot, nice homes, and nuke plant) and Richmond area.  That's ground zero.

Ceiling tiles and cabinets full of drinking glasses beware! 

Now if it turns out to be a foreshock or something, that gets more interesting.

[Sand]

Wife is in Baltimore, MD area on work. Just texted me that she felt it. And another friend in Gaithersburg also reported feeling it.


And there was one in Colorado at the same time apparently?

[Xilren's Twin]

Well, that was the most interesting way to prematurely end a web meeting I've ever been in.
"Sorry, we have to go, we appear to be having an earthquake".
Was rather disconcerting and I'm several hundred miles away from richmond.  Large local companies all evacuated their buildings; our group, not so much :)

[Ghambit]

Kinda phreaky we had a shallow quake with an epi. right below a nuclear power plant.  
I tweeted over there to find out their status.  Maybe they lost a reactor and that caused the quake.     At this point I doubt nothing.

And now, escuse me while I go to the store to prepare for a go'ram Hurricane.  

[Surlyboi]

Felt it up here in NYC.

2012 man, 2012. 

[Stormwaltz]

Felt it at the workplace in central MD. Californians on my team dove under desks. The wife and kids felt it in PA, and said stuff fell off my office bookshelves (though to be fair, that happens when the kids jump around in there).. Jeremiah apparently thought it was caused by Endermen taking blocks from the ground under the house.

So!

How long until the Republicans blame it on Obama?

[KallDrexx]

From a CNN article

Traders in the New York Stock Exchange felt the shaking and shouted to each other, "Keep trading!" CNN's business correspondent Alison Kosik reported from the floor at 2:20 p.m. E.T.

Not sure why I found that funny

[Ingmar]

Pictures of this are cracking me up:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/n/a/2011/08/23/national/w110531D99.DTL&object=%2Fn%2Fp%2F2011%2F08%2F23%2Fcdbca142-0cac-4064-81eb-e40527f8604f.jpg

THE HORROR

EDIT:

http://jmckinley.posterous.com/dc-earthquake-devastation

[Mrbloodworth]

How long until the Republicans blame it on Obama?

To late.

[Bzalthek]

All my friends from when I lived up in Northern VA are posting about it on facebook.  They're funny.

[Ghambit]

I broke the nuke plant story (ive been to this plant before actually) to CNN and lo and behold they FINALLY decided to report on it.  Check this out also:

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission has ranked the earthquake damage risk at all 104 nuclear power plants in this country. The pair operated by Dominion Power, at Lake Anna in eastern Louisa County, come in at 7th most 'at risk' on the list.

According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, North Anna 1 and 2 face an annual 1 in 22,727 chance of the core being damaged by an earthquake and exposing the public to radiation. The national average for U.S. nuclear plants is a 1 in 74,000 chance.

The top five most at-risk plants are all on the east coast: Indian Point, north of New York City; the Pilgrim Plant south of Boston, Limerick outside of Philadelphia, the Sequoyah plants near Chattanooga Tennessee and Beaver Valley near Pittsburgh. These five plants are at a higher statistical risk than those along fault lines in California, for example, because they were not designed for and built in presumed strong quake danger areas.  Since they were constructed the federal government has revised upwards the quake risks where they are.

According to Jim Norvelle with Dominion Power, North Anna was designed to withstand a magnitude 5.9 – 6.1 earthquake.

update: they just started shut down procedures on those 2 reactors

[Khaldun]

Felt it pretty noticeably near Philly. Knocked over a pile of books.

[Ingmar]

The nuclear plant thing is basically a non-story. They shut down as a precaution because they lost their electric power (which I'd guess is a regulatory requirement when that happens), all their backup diesel generators kicked off fine.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/aug/23/10/58-earthquake-rocks-virginia-other-parts-east-coas-ar-1256961/

Sounds like some unreinforced masonry might have fallen over right near the epicenter.

[Samwise]

Californians on my team dove under desks.

Hey, the earthquake drills in grade school paid off.    I wonder if I'd have the same reaction.  It's been a long time.

[Ingmar]

Californians on my team dove under desks.

Hey, the earthquake drills in grade school paid off.    I wonder if I'd have the same reaction.  It's been a long time.

Not too long til http://www.shakeout.org/drill/ day!

[MuffinMan]

http://jmckinley.posterous.com/dc-earthquake-devastation

Laughed pretty hard at this. The horror, indeed.

[Mrbloodworth]

The Washington Post's Dylan Matthews:

    In retrospect, I resorted to cannibalism rather fast after the earthquake.

[proudft]

The nuclear plant thing is basically a non-story. They shut down as a precaution because they lost their electric power (which I'd guess is a regulatory requirement when that happens), all their backup diesel generators kicked off fine.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/aug/23/10/58-earthquake-rocks-virginia-other-parts-east-coas-ar-1256961/

Sounds like some unreinforced masonry might have fallen over right near the epicenter.

Yeah, the building codes here in sunny/shaky California are (obviously) much more prepared for things rattling around.  

It's a tough call - is it worthwhile to have requirements to withstand a once-every-300-years earthquake, or just eat the costs when it eventually happens?   Especially if no one got really hurt this time (though brick facings on buildings are like the #1 thing to run the fuck away from in an earthquake and if no one got hit by a falling one this time it was pretty lucky - closely followed by brick chimneys.  Chimneys falling through roofs killed a ton of people in the 1906 SF quake since it was early early morning and everyone was in bed).

[Ingmar]

Yeah brick facades make a mess. If it is true that the nuclear plant is only built for a 6.0 that's pretty retarded given that the *really* big ones can happen basically anywhere, not just on strike-slip faults.

[Ghambit]

The nuclear plant thing is basically a non-story. They shut down as a precaution because they lost their electric power (which I'd guess is a regulatory requirement when that happens), all their backup diesel generators kicked off fine.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/aug/23/10/58-earthquake-rocks-virginia-other-parts-east-coas-ar-1256961/

Sounds like some unreinforced masonry might have fallen over right near the epicenter.

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.

[Ingmar]

I just heard someone claim the Washington Monument might be tilting, maybe we can get Pfizer to put up the fee to straighten it out.

[ghost]

More pictures of the damage. 

[Reg]

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

[Sand]

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

[01101010]

5.8? This will be out of the news cycle in a day.

It would if it was in the SF Bay Area California. Anything below a 6 is a basically just a tremor here

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.

edit: to add this -