Fox is reporting that a 5.8 magnitude quake was felt in DC moments ago, and just as Trace Gallagher went into an explanation of deep versus shallow quakes, a live video shot of the Capitol jolted. Fox also reported that the Capitol itself was evacuated, and the Pentagon is also being evacuated. The quake was apparently felt as far north as New York City. More as it develops.
More: A 3.6 quake struck the nation’s capital just over a year ago.
Update: Today’s quake has now been upgraded to a 6.0. It was centered on Mineral, VA and was 3.7 miles deep.
Update: All federal buildings in DC are being evacuated, but there are no reports yet of major damage or casualties. The quake was also felt in Boston, MA.
Update: It was also felt as far south as North Carolina.
Update: JFK airport has apparently been shut down. The USGS officially rates the quake at 5.9.
Update: There was understandable panic at the Pentagon, as many there interpreted the quake as another attack on their work place.
The Pentagon has been evacuated, CNN’s Barbara Starr reports. “When the building began shaking rather violently, hundreds of people began streaming out,” she said, because many people thought that the building was under attack. Starr was standing in the Pentagon’s press office when the roof started to shake.
Twitter traffic suggests the quake was felt all over the east coast.
In Philadelphia, HunterPence3 tweeted, “Wow Earthquake just shook the entire locker room!”
In Cleveland, “tribeinsider” wrote “I’m no expert but i think we just had an earthquake here.”
And even in Toronto, tweets said that the shaking could be felt for minutes.
Update: Fox just reported that there is concern that the Washington Monument may be “tilting.”
Update: Some minor damage reported around Richmnond, VA.
There were no immediate reports of damage as buildings shook and were cleared throughout Richmond and other cities in Virginia, but within minutes, Richmond police began receiving calls about possible property damage. Those calls included a possible stairwell collapse along North First Street downtown, a possible wall collapse along East Broad Street in the city’s East End and a possible wall collapse at a structure along Hioaks Road in South Richmond.
William Harper, an employee with the town of Mineral in Louisa County, reported “some building damage” at the municipal offices.
Update: No damage reported at either, but two nuclear plants near the epicenter have been taken offline.
Update: Some good news, the Pentagon was not evacuated after all, and has been safety cleared.
Update: The USGS has downgraded the quake to 5.8.
Update: The quake was felt in Baltimore, but there has been no damage reported.
Update: The NY subway system is “unaffected.”
Update: How long before President Obama blames the economy on today’s earthquake — before he returns from vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, or after?
Update: The twitter stream for the quake is #earthquake. And traffic on twitter has slowed to a low crawl.
Update: So far, there are still no reports of casualties or major damage. And there is no threat of a tsunami.
Update: Josh Trevino on Facebook: “Sorry about the earthquake, DC. That was just Rick Perry getting off his horse.” #wishidthoughtofthat.
Update: The National Cathedral has lost three of its four pinnacle stones.
Does this top the all time list for strongest quake in the area? The strongest I can find before this one was a 3.6.
USGS lists a 5.9 in 1897 for Virginia.
Hard to say. I’ve done some research and found some contradictory information. Best I can tell is its probably in the top four or five as far as the US East Coast goes in recorded history. (With three of those being estimates.)
I sure felt it here in Baltimore, with one particularly large thud in the middle. Among all the rest of the clatter, I actually thought I might have even heard it. But that could have been my imagination or something like the 150-year-old brick building I live in settling on its granite foundation.
I live in Odenton, MD, between you up in Baltimore and Annapolis. I was taking a break (work at home) and putting things back on shelves, since we put in new flooring over the weekend. Felt the floor vibrate, thought a low-flying helicopter was above the house. Then it got real strong, pictures falling over, ceiling fan jangling and shaking, wall mirrors shaking. I thought the “helicopter” was on its way to crashing outside (Ft. Meade/NSA just down the road). Then I realized it was an earthquake and it was pretty surreal and scary, then it just stopped. Wild.
First the quake followed up soon by a hurricaine. Sounds like someone is finally trying to clean up Washington!
+1 and a gold star.
-1 and take back the gold star for lousy execution. A 5.8? Really? Thats not gonna be enough.
Try harder.
We keep getting signals but we’re not paying attention.
Even the old time,ignorant heathen knew when God was angry,but we in America are too educated and clueless.
This nation does not realize the thin ice it’s on.
This interference against Israel from Washington will be put to an end.
Even God runs out of patience.
When was the last time an earthquake shook up Washington D.C.?
Last week about the time Irene began to form,Washington told Israel to apologize to the incompetent buffoons ruling Egypt because they failed to secure their own border.
Israel was attacked and then blamed by the Muslim world and the U.S.took the side of evil against Israel yet again. What is worse ,the U.S. also told Israel to stand down and not to escalate the ‘situation’ with Hamas terrorists in Gaza.The so called friend is really a despicable,arrogant,meddlesome bully.
I guarantee you one thing I know for sure ,God is very angry with the U.S. and is soon to put America in her place permanently.
The 5.9 quake was a forewarning of much worse to come and Hurricane Irene will just lead from one major disaster to another for the arrogant meddling empire on it’s final decline.
From the other PJM Article:
“You can bet that revolutionary Islamist groups will proclaim the earthquake that hit Washington and the area around it to be the work of divine intervention to smite the evil American rulers.”
maybe d.c. will break off and float away with congress and the “WON” and give america a chance to recover.
Except I’m still in Martha’s Vinyeard!
NEENER NEENER NEENER!
Now, a follow-up tsunami hitting Martha’s Vineyards would be a very clear, divine message….
You forgot, everyone is on “vacation”. I mean speaking with their constituents.
I like Mike’s comment! I was just sitting in my chair at work and I felt my chair shaking, so I thought someone was trying to get my attention and I turned around, but no one was there!
Come to think of it, perhaps Someone is finally trying to get attention.
Well, THAT was sure an afternoon wake-me-up!
It was easy to see who in the building doesn’t know about earthquake safetey. They all ran outside and stood near the (glass exterior) building.
/sigh/
There’s no reason for any evacuations or shut-downs. This was no big deal.
exactly- no big deal
here in cali– a 5.9, although not insignificant (especially if one has never experienced an earthquake before,) is child’s play; any kind of tremor (from a sonic boom, a large rumbling truck, or an earthquake is registered in our own “richter scale psyche” as we await the possible escalating strength to “go to 11″ and the inevitability that it’s “game on…”- when an earthquake stops short of the “game on” intensity it’s back to business in a matter of seconds
You all are also smart enough to build buildings that will hold up to quakes. I was forced to evacuate the building I was in “because that’s the policy for building evacuations.” What was most foolish is that we were told the rendezvous location for our office was *in the next building which was also being evacuated*
Well, now you can just prepare for the next disaster– every local happytalk newscast blathering endlessly about how to prepare for and what to do in an earthquake… online or text polling (standard text messaging rates apply, of course) “Did you feel the quake? Let us know!” as each of the aftershocks hits in the next week or so… and a multitude of experts with graphs and videos showing how the earth’s plates move and cause quakes.
It might be a little exciting now, but after a couple weeks of it, you might be wishing that a building did fall on you.
In California, the residents are not phased by 5.9 stuff (pretty much a non-event unless it is downtown SF or LA), so it was amusing to see the networks break in to show masses of people, in city after city, gathered outside their workplace. But you will soon know the pain that Californians feel, as your local newsreaders beat you over the head with it: “Aftershocks!! Film at 11.”
Temor felt here as well.
I live 30 miles from the epicenter and that was SCARY!! It went on and on and on.
Whew!
South Anna nuke reactor very near there went off line automatically. Thank God for American technology and safety precautions.
I can’t believe what a bunch of wusses these easterners are. 6 is nothing. You need your sea legs. Bet you they can’t ride the mechanical bull, either.
snork: when it’s this close to the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and you’re in the nation’s capital, the first thing you think is terrorism. As soon as the last tremor was felt, I didn’t think terrorism any more, and I did think “earthquake.” But give us Easterners a break. We don’t live on the San Andreas Fault and it was very noisy. Believe me, if you’ve lived through one terrorist attack on the Pentagon, or the World Trade Center, you’re not a wuss.
Give us a break.
Yep, we are wusses. The file cabinets shaking was all I needed to head for the fire escape. I’ll bet the Japanese are even more amused.
It depends on what a person is familiar with. Have you dealt with 30 below blizzard conditions for days at a time? If you haven’t (and it scared you) should I make fun of you? Every area of the country (and the world) has unique traumas and predictable difficulties that are weather/geologically related. Just because we may be accustomed to dealing with the ones we’re familiar with doesn’t really make us superior in any way to someone who hasn’t experienced that particular kind and gets a little shook when it hits unexpectedly. Don’t be a jerk.
If you live in a region that doesn’t have the same earthquake-resistant construction codes, even a 5.9 earthquake is a big deal.
In reality, we should do better. The Appalachian mountains are evidence that tectonic activity is not unknown here in the East. It may not be as common as the Left Coast, but it still happens.
We felt it here in Newport Kentucky. We didn’t know what was going on.
Felt here at the auto shop in Framingham MA by seated office workers but not standing front desk people
“The quake was apparently felt as far north as New York City.”
I felt in the boston suburbs. Pretty creepy. Must have been much creepier closer to the epicenter.
quake was felt as far as Fredericton New Brunswick Canada
Perhaps, God’s way of letting Sodom on the Potomac that they’re next?
not funny
Why not?
If Obama stays in Marth’s Vineyard, now, he’s toast.
We don’t want him back here. He can stay up there for the duration, as in until January, 2013. We’ll pack his things down here in DC.
Bad economy blamed on DC earthquake in 3….2….1
D.C. is hard at work right now trying to figure the correct spin on the to blame it on the Tea Party!
THERE IT IS!
http://weaselzippers.us/2011/08/26/former-obama-economic-adviser-bizarrely-blames-east-coast-earthquake-for-economy-woes/
On February 28, 2001 the Pacific Northwest (where I live) had an earthquake measuring 6.8 and lasting 45 seconds.
The Nisqually quake was felt throughout a wide area from Bellingham, Washingotn to Eugine, Oregon.
I don’t recall the whole northwest corridor shutting down and evacuating.
In fact, I remember finishing my work day and going home during a typical ‘rush hour’ in traffic.
We saw bits on the news about particular establishments that had suffered exceptional damage, but no one Overreacted like they are on the east coast.
Maybe not having an overabunance of bureaucrats can be beneficial in more ways than one.
And I was walking in Bellevue, and didn’t even notice it. I was wondering why all those people were coming out of the buildings.
Everyone has their Achilles heal. For you in the Seattle area, 2.0″ of snow and ice and the city shuts down for 3 days.
Too true! It took me 14 hours to get a U-Haul truck from Kelso to Pier 48, about 100 miles, years ago because there was a whiff of snow in the air. Seattle pretty much just stops for snow.
That said, even Anchorage which used to pride itself on never shutting down for anything has gotten big enough that the traffic is just unmanageable on a heavy snow day so they sometimes close the schools because they can’t safely run the busses. Once that was unthinkable. They only closed for the Monday following the Good Friday Earthquake in ’64, the strongest earthquake ever recorded in North America at an estimated 9.0 Richter.
Excuse me, but I live in Puyallup, NOT Seattle.
Liberal Seattle had a problem because they were afraid to use Salt on the streets because adding Sodium Chloride to the waste runnoff that dumps into the Puget Sound (Ocean water – that is SALT WATER) might damgage the environment or something like that.
2.0 inches of snow was No Problem for me, I just put the Explorer into 4wd and went where ever I wanted with no problems.
As a fourth-generation Californian, I rather enjoyed the ride, and scooted my chair over to my 4th-floor window to watch and see if the Aurora Bridge would collapse.
Much to the disappointment of our automobile-hating City Council, it didn’t.
Here in Alaska a 5.8 might, just might, cause somebody to look up and ask, “was that an earthquake?” The absolutely dumbest thing you can do is run out in the street where if there is an aftershock you’re in the path of falling glass or fascia. ‘Course, now we get to pay all the federal employees for the rest of the day and in those union states that have language about federally declared holidays, you’ll have grievances demanding that since the federal employees were given the day off, the state employees thousands of miles away should get holiday worked premium pay, usually time and a half for hours worked. Don’t laugh,it actually happened here when President Reagan gave federal employees in DC the day off because of “heavy” snow in DC. Some of our employees grieved wanting holiday pay for the day. They actually got holiday pay out of an arbitrator for Columbus Day, not a legal holiday in Alaska, because of a Presidential declaration of the holiday even though there are literally hundreds of “holidays” recognized by Presidential declaration or Congressional action.
Well, it was either run out of the collapsing building, or stay inside the collapsing building. Your choice.
We don’t build things with earthquakes in mind, because we don’t have any. Just like we don’t have tornado shelters in the ground, and we don’t have brushfire crews, and we don’t keep thousands of snow removal vehicles on call for the 2 months of winter we have. Like someone else said, we all have weak spots where the unusual freaks us out. Get off your high horse.
Aside from the residents not being used to earthquakes, D.C. was built on a swamp. That ground’s not very stable, to begin with.
Listen son, our castle’s in a bloody swamp! We need all the land we can get!
A Cesspool built on s Swamp!
What could go wrong?
Excellent job, Quake Noobs, from SoCal!
And yes, feel free to point and laugh your ass off the next time greater Los Angeles completely spirals into chaos and mayhem the next we get hit by a storm that drops 1/4 inch of rain. It all depends on what you’re used to.
A word of advice: This thing is big enough to generate aftershocks, and in my experience, they can be more disconcerting than the main event, if you aren’t expecting them, because you’re already on edge. So just be mentally prepared for them, and don’t let them upset you…they will decrease in frequency and intensity with time. You just have to let yourself roll with it, no pun intended.
This is undoubtedly the result of acombination of global warming and opposition to an increase in the debt ceiling.
Obviously, this had to have been Bush’s Fault that struck the Beltway…
A friend reports that his grandkids were swimming in nearby Lake Anna. Earthquake came and one of the girls asked grandpa what boat went by that caused that great wave?
Tsunami!!!!
“Update: The USGS has downgraded the quake to 5.8.”
Will the IRS now investigate the USGS?
Unexpectedly!
Quake Felt on Golf Course Where Obama Was Playing
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/08/…
“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.”
George Washington
Update:
I live 25 miles from epicenter and I just checked my garage. It’s a total disaster area.
Of course, it was a disaster area before the quake. I really need to clean that mess up. Keep putting it off.
Be sure to ask your doctor if, now that the quake is over, you will be able to play the piano.
This just in, President Obama directed the USGS to label the new epicenter “Bush’s Fault.”
[rimshot]
Oy!
I was on the 16th floor of a building in Mid Town NYC. The chair rocked back and forth as did the lamps and flowers. It lasted about ten to fifteen seconds. The biggest fear was that many of these buildings are certified and inspected by the department of Buildings. Need I say more….
This just showed a sliver of what the Japanese must have felt. Again, my fears were more about the miles of asbestos covered steam pipes and old structures disturbed by the shaking.
I wouldn’t freak to much about the asbestos. Any fibers shook loose will stay in the walls and not be a problem to the average worker. The asbestos scare of the late 80′s caused more problems than if they had left the stuff alone in the first place.
It wasn’t too bad. Just unexpected. I doubt there was “understandable panic” at the Pentagon. My federal building has an emergency evacuation plan which we followed without incident.
Sitting in 6th floor office in Reston VA.
First thought was wow, the tanks are rolling on DC. O wait …they are all over seas…..drat.
Building rattled like I use to feel when lots of armor rolled past in a hurry in Panama….felt like the quake that hit there in 1990….went back to meeting in office….tons of calls from staff asking if we felt the quake and could they go home…LOL….
If every heat wave and snow storm is proof of globalclimatewarmingchange, then can this be proof that there is a God and he isn’t a liberal?
Why do reporters like to claim “understandable panic” at the Pentagon? We didn’t have panic-stricken mobs at the Pentagon on 9/11, and this was nothing compared thereto.
The vast majority of people working in the Pentagon are not prone to panic attacks, being in the business we’re in.
“Understandable panic”. That sounds like something Andrea Mitchell would say.
Who wants to see a news story about everyone being calm?
A while ago, I saw a headline and story about Rahm Emanuel “storming out of an interview”, but when I watched the interview, there was no storming. He calmly took off his clip-on michrophone, spoke in a normal tone to the interviewer, and got up and left. No storming, no yelling, no kicking chairs over… I wouldn’t have watched it if the headline had told the truth about what happenned.
The media will lie about anything and everything. These days, it leans more to everything.
I used to live in Marin County and lived there during the Loma Prieta in ’89. This was a big quake (I live 50 miles from the epicenter, in Springfield, VA). For those on the West Coast who poo-poo it, recall that buildings are older, taller and much more likely to be made from unreinforced masonry here. When I moved here, I looked at all the buildings and marveled at the architecture. It took me a while to realize what I was reacting to. It was the fact that so many houses are simply made of brick. If that had been a 6.8 instead of a 5.8, Old Town Alexandria would have been devistated and probably Colonial Williamsburg. The building codes here are not designed to mitigate earthquake damage. A quake that would do minimal damage in California would devastate the East Coast, not just because of architecture, but also because people would have no idea what to do.
As a kid in SoCal, the mid sized quakes were kinda fun. We’d look over the fence and watch the neighbors pool slosh back and forth, and we could see the dust clouds rising in the hills as they shook. The side to side ones can make you feel a bit sea sick. As a Californian, every time I see a pick of some old brick building from back east the first thing I think of is “Why hasn’t that fallen over yet.
Typical DC event: everything is shaken up but no one can manage to find a fault. I say that when we find that seam in the earth, we name it in honor of our sitting President: Obama’s Fault.
We felt it way out here in Cincinnati land. Real light, but noticable.
We’re stationed and live on Aberdeen Proving Grounds between Baltimore and Philadelphia and it was enough to rattle my house. I didn’t figure out what was going on till I head the dishes in the cupboard rattling.
Washington DC collapsing under an earthquake – that would be the BEST POSSIBLE THING for the people of America, hopefully there will be a huge 11 on the Richter scale quake follow-up and wipe out the bureaucrats now strangling the life of the country.
Maybe it is our forefathers rolling over in their graves?
My favorite crack so far?
The federal government closed for the day. In other news, the economy showed brief signs of recovery…
There was a partial building collapse in Culpeper, where all our used homeschool books are bought and sold in the basement of a church where kids used to meet for classes. One injured – haven’t heard anything more. I don’t think there were any classes there today – they’ve moved on to a larger building.
I was brushing off the earthquake until I heard about the serious damage so close to home for me. My husband’s office building was cracked, too.
Maybe Paul Krugman’s next column will lament how a bigger and more destructive earthquake would have stimulated the construction industry.
This is not the Washington shake-up you are looking for…
Move along!
That said, I was walking back on the grass from lunch and didn’t feel a thing. People came pouring out of the buildings (couple miles from Pentagon) and I had to ask what was up. Got back to my cubicle and a wooden bust my Dad brought back from Kenya was on the floor. That convinced me it really was a quake and not a practical joke.
Hey, I live quite close to the epicenter, and we are a LONG way from DC (geographically and culturally). I am pusihing 60, have lived in VA all my life, and I have never experienced a real earthquake before today. There was no damage, and Californians may sneer, but it was a truly frightening experience for me. I had no idea what was going on.
Dude, Like…I’ve been to the Epicenter. They sell, like everything dude! And they have, like, food for days there, mahn. It’s almost as good as the Apricot Center in, like, DisneyWorld but it’s totally bitchin’. So, like, ok…super high-fives to the dudes who’ve ever been to the Epicenter. Shah!
(OK, my lame attempt at being a Calimoron is at an end. Not to say that everyone from California is a moron….I have relatives who live there…and they are not morons. But…just couldn’t resist the juxtaposition of words there)
Thanks for indulging me.
Was that the “blonde valley girl”?
In other news today, the USGS announced that the president was in error when he said the Washington D.C. Earthquake was Bush’s Fault – it was in fact the Ramapo Fault.
I was in DC working today when the shaking started, and I’m like most other long time DC residents and this was a first for me. It was a few minutes before anyone actually knew what was going on – I was headed down to the security office to find out if they knew what happened when it was announced over the PA that it was, in fact, a quake. My company has an evacuation plan – plus a designated staging area – in a small park away from buildings.
I went back to my office, hit “save” on the document I’d been working on and went to the designated area. What the heck – I was about ready to take a smoke break anyway.
What shocked me a lot more than the quake was the fact that I knew that traffic was going to be a mess when I wanted to head home after I finished working for the day.
All the Federal workers bolted – all of us contractors stayed at work. I take the DC Metro and 4 hours after the shake the management of that wonderful mass transit system was still insisting that all the trains had to maintain a speed of not more than 15 miles per hour until all of the track could be inspected.
Apparently they hadn’t inspected a single inch over 4 hours later ’cause it took 2 1/2 hours to travel from downtown DC to the Springfield, VA at a crawl!!
PUULEEAZE, can we get off this topic? The entire east coast is sissified and I am tired of hearing about it. You all should be more worried about surviving another 4years of an Obama regime, now that is scary.
Thank God it didn’t damage a real cathedral (the seat of a bishop). Many of the great real cathedrals of Northern Europe were stolen from the Catholic Church, which built them, but the ‘National Cathedral’ was nothing but a victory-mosque sorta deal built by Epicopalians in the few minutes before they abandoned religion altogether for Unitarianism (at most, there is one god). Today, the only serious differences between the Archbishop of Canterbury and an atheist is in decor and wardrobe. The Commies tried to fight a war in defense of atheism, but until the head of the Russian Orthodox Church got on the radio and called for the Great Patriotic War, it looked like Uncle Joe was gonna have to face the Wehrmacht by himself. Anyone who expects Libertarians to ‘man’ the barricades is as stupid as I think he is. Nobody’s gonna be risking his life for low marginal tax rates, much less gay marriage.
The earthquake is only a demonstration by Obama of what powers he has to shake up D.C.
Just wait for the encore.
Maybe this was another Biden screw up.
He could have been showing the Chinese all the big red buttons he has responsibility for and accidentally pushed a nuclear missile launch in Virginia.
Dave Wilkerson spoke about this in his book from the 80′s. That was the first thing that came to mind…. ‘Earthquakes in the US in unexpected areas. John Paul Jackson has also had similar comments. Strange.
I live in Louisa, where the epicenter originated. For all of you who said this quake was “nothing” , come visit our schools where I work and my children attend, which may not be open again, if ever, for a long time. This is my daughter’s Senoir Year. Come visit my house, where we had to dig the chimney out of the big hole it made in the roof, now we worry about “Irene” tell me this quake was “nothing”!