Earthquake in Virginia

August 23, 2011 5:28 PM

As everyone knows there was an earthquake in central VA today that could be felt from South Carolina to Maine and points west. Stunning pictures of the carnage are beginning to appear. This is also time to consider nuclear power plant vulnerability in the USA (interactive map). North Anna Power Station was very close to the epicenter and shut down automatically.
posted by stbalbach (144 comments total)

The National Cathedral in Washington D.C. was damaged, and the National Parks Service shut down all its properties in DC following the earthquake.

I wonder how long until some right wing racist nutjob claims that the earthquake happened because today is the first official full day that the MLK Jr. memorial was open.
posted by hippybear at 5:30 PM on August 23, 2011

A colleague just sent me this.
posted by Toekneesan at 5:32 PM on August 23, 2011 [5 favorites]

That story was all kinds of funny:

“People say it’s just like the movies, but it was way scarier than that,” said Cusick, a 10th grader. “Your heart just like stopped, or at least skipped a beat.”

"Cindy Cusick, James’s mother, said the quake woke her from a nap on the couch. She said she rolled over, only to be thrown onto the floor by a tremor."

The horror!
posted by dibblda at 5:32 PM on August 23, 2011

I wonder how long until some right wing racist nutjob claims that the earthquake happened because today is the first official full day that the MLK Jr. memorial was open.

Why didn't Obama but short his vacation to address the nation?
posted by T.D. Strange at 5:35 PM on August 23, 2011

The 'stunning pictures' are pretty much piss takes.
posted by Mister_A at 5:35 PM on August 23, 2011

A colleague just sent me this.

It's showing up with some LOL-text, too.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:36 PM on August 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

The 'stunning pictures' are pretty much piss takes.

Why yes. That was the joke when approximately 476,000 people posted them on twitter this afternoon, and that is the joke here.
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:36 PM on August 23, 2011 [14 favorites]

I understand that people from California and similar places are mocking the overblown D.C. reaction to the earthquake. Fair enough. Even though we knew it was an earthquake as we evacuated the Senate buildings, we couldn't help but look around for smoke or flames as we walked out to the sidewalk. I'm making as much fun as anyone, but for some people there were a couple of really uncomfortable minutes until we knew for sure what was going on.

Those disaster photos are heart-breaking, though. The sticky notes...the yogurt... *shudder*
posted by wintermind at 5:37 PM on August 23, 2011 [7 favorites]

Earthquakes east of the Rockies are very different from those in the West, eastern quakes can be felt over far greater distances. This is because the continental plate's eastern edge is near Iceland, and the western edge is CA. The edges are broken and fractured and so the earth doesn't transmit waves very well over long distances, quakes tend to be localized. But the center of the plate is like solid marble and thus when upwelling magma underneath causes too much pressure at one point, it's like a hammer hitting a board, the vibrations can be felt over long distances. Thus a big earthquake has the potential to cause much more damage since it would impact bigger territory. But they are also very rare, which in a way makes them more dangerous since no one is really prepared.
posted by stbalbach at 5:37 PM on August 23, 2011 [23 favorites]

As a Californian, I want to laugh at this, but 5.8 isn't a small quake. It really isn't. I imagine this must have been really scary for a lot of people. The last quake to do real damage in the U.S., Northridge, was a 6.7. My shoddy math makes me think that means this one was about 1/10th the size of Northridge, which certainly isn't nothing. I have slept through or failed to notice my share of earthquakes since I've lived in L.A., but those were 2s and 3s and 4s. This was a pretty seriously large earthquake.
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:39 PM on August 23, 2011 [8 favorites]

I don't get the Twitter, you see.
posted by Mister_A at 5:39 PM on August 23, 2011

I wonder how long until some right wing racist nutjob claims that the earthquake happened because today is the first official full day that the MLK Jr. memorial was open.

No, no, the earthquake happened today because everyone is stressed as fuck. At least, I am.
posted by limeonaire at 5:40 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Congratulations to @Kaneshow for being the first of many to mention the East Coast earthquake on Twitter. You win social media.

For some reason this cracks me up totally.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 5:42 PM on August 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

The thing about a 5.8 is that it's enough to feel it and be surprised, but rarely enough to do damage. So it gets a dismissive reaction from those of us who have felt earthquakes that size or larger. If it's your first time, though, I get that it would be unnerving.

But unless you're in some seriously deficient construction a 5.8 isn't going to do much damage in the U.S., even on the East Coast where earthquakes aren't usually a worry.
posted by wildcrdj at 5:42 PM on August 23, 2011

Earthquakes east of the Rockies are very different from those in the West, eastern quakes can be felt over far greater distances. This is because the continental plate's eastern edge is near Iceland, and the western edge is CA.

I'm not saying this isn't true, but I've never heard this. My impression was that this quake caused a lot of shaking, felt over long distances, because it occurred exceptionally close to the surface (less than 1km below ground).
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:42 PM on August 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

Man, maybe I by mistake ordered an extra-large serving of humorlessness today, but it's hard for me to find this kind of earthquake humor funny when there has been so much suffering from similar events in our recent past (as well as many, many Americans with affected family). I guess just thank your stars that you happened to randomly be born somewhere with decent infrastructure.
posted by threeants at 5:44 PM on August 23, 2011 [10 favorites]

Oh great....as I am straightening the crooked pictures on my wall from the quake I have to start worrying about Hurricane Irene which is apparently taking aim at the northeast coast. Extreme heat, humidity, double dip recessions, quakes, hurricanes...all in the same summer! Can pestilence be far behind?
posted by Seymour Zamboni at 5:44 PM on August 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

The WSJ comments are full of people saying 'Atlas is shrugging' - I shit you not.
posted by anigbrowl at 5:45 PM on August 23, 2011 [4 favorites]

I'm about 100 or so miles from the epicenter and my house shook pretty good. It was sort of like the house turned into an unbalanced washing machine for about twenty seconds. Not super-scary, but it certainly caught my attention.

Funny thing: I was listening to James McMurtry's song Hurricane Party and thinking about what we need to do before Irene maybe heads this way when the earthquake struck. Mother Nature's got a twisted sense of humor.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 5:46 PM on August 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

This may have been a significant quake, but it's amazing how much worse it could have been. Here's the Virginia earthquake (a 5.8) vs. the Japanese earthquake (a 9.0) on a graph of energy released

Also, from Wonkette:

The North Anna nuclear power station in the middle of [Eric] Cantor’s district is only built to withstand a 5.9-6.1 magnitude earthquake and has no seismographs, because they were all removed after budget cuts. And it’s built on a fault line! AAAAAAHHHH! It’s almost like we’re better at this than space lizards!

(Oh, and xkcd was right!)
posted by Rhaomi at 5:46 PM on August 23, 2011 [21 favorites]

...but it's hard for me to find this kind of earthquake humor funny...

But isn't relief at the root of a lot of humor?
posted by Toekneesan at 5:46 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

North Anna Power Station was very close to the epicenter and shut down automatically.

Thank God.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 5:47 PM on August 23, 2011

Yeah, I'm with threeants on this. You Californians can yuck it up (HURHURHUR 5.9 IS A SPEEDBUMP), but for those of us who have never lived through an earthquake before... that shit is scary.
posted by specialagentwebb at 5:47 PM on August 23, 2011 [8 favorites]

I don't understand that XKCD comic, I wish there was someone who could pop in here and explain it to me...
posted by villanelles at dawn at 5:48 PM on August 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

it's hard for me to find this kind of earthquake humor funny

I guess I get that, but it's not like people are making fun of earthquakes in general. Just this one, which as far as I can tell didn't seriously injure anyone or cause very much damage at all.

Seems like a perfect thing to laugh at, especially after it startles/scares you (as I get it would for those in their first quake).
posted by wildcrdj at 5:49 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

The WSJ comments are full of people saying 'Atlas is shrugging' - I shit you not.

Bah, it's no Libertarian; I think it's John Henry coming back.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:50 PM on August 23, 2011 [5 favorites]

I was walking in Philly today and saw someone has scrawled this on a construction sign:

'QUAKE '11


But as funny as the West coast may find us East coasters reaction to this OMG WTF natural disaster (and yes, I find it funny too), 2 things to remember.

1) My first reaction -- having never experienced an earthquake, and not even thinking it was possible -- was to assume there was a terrorist attack on the U.S.

2) A friend of mine shared this story. Her daughter (from Jersey) moved to California. They had severe thunderstorms with hail. PEOPLE WERE FREAKING OUT. She was sitting at her desk wondering what the big deal is. Because it was HAIL -- what's the big fricking deal?
posted by DoubleLune at 5:51 PM on August 23, 2011 [9 favorites]

I guess I get that, but it's not like people are making fun of earthquakes in general. Just this one, which as far as I can tell didn't seriously injure anyone or cause very much damage at all.

You only say that because you didn't have to get home on Metro this afternoon!
posted by wintermind at 5:52 PM on August 23, 2011 [4 favorites]

... it's not like people are making fun of earthquakes in general. Just this one, which as far as I can tell didn't seriously injure anyone or cause very much damage at all.

The trouble there is that these jokes were literally the instant response, minutes after the ground stopped shaking. It was way too soon to know that no one had been hurt.

It looks like the jokesters got lucky, but it was imprudent. A lot of people (including a lot of Serious People on Twitter) would have looked very stupid if some old pre-code buildings in VA or DC (or that nuke plant near the epicenter) had turned out to be badly damaged after all.

tldr: Wait for the all-clear before you start in with the jokes.
posted by gerryblog at 5:53 PM on August 23, 2011 [4 favorites]

This is another one of those times when I am unable to discern irony.
posted by humboldt32 at 5:55 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

What's with the Hipstamatic pictures of the damage? Do we really have to trivialize what happened today?
posted by monospace at 5:56 PM on August 23, 2011

1) My first reaction -- having never experienced an earthquake, and not even thinking it was possible -- was to assume there was a terrorist attack on the U.S.

Yeah, I was at work and was like, "Whoa, what was that, an earthquake?" and my co-worker chimed in, "Either that, or someone just dropped the big one." Oh wow, don't even say that, man.
posted by indubitable at 5:58 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

I guess just thank your stars that you happened to randomly be born somewhere with decent infrastructure.

Well, northern Chile had a 5.8 or 5.9 earthquake last year that did no real damage, either.

The trouble there is that these jokes were literally the instant response, minutes after the ground stopped shaking. It was way too soon to know that no one had been hurt.

I mentioned this in the Metatalk thread, but one of the unique aspects of earthquakes (compared to other natural disasters) is that they instantly trigger a huge adrenaline rush. It's NATURAL to get sort of giddy and chatty right after an earthquake.

But as funny as the West coast may find us East coasters reaction to this OMG WTF natural disaster

Most of the straight up jokes I've seen about this earthquake have not stemmed from "West Coasters," so there's no reason to start a coastal turf war. West Coast reactions have been more confused and a bit defensive.
posted by muddgirl at 5:58 PM on August 23, 2011

villanelles at dawn: "I don't understand that XKCD comic, I wish there was someone who could pop in here and explain it to me.."

It's talking about how internet speeds are so fast now, that people near the epicenter of an earthquake who immediately tweet about it on their phones can have their messages reach nearby followers before the earthquake's shockwaves do.
posted by Rhaomi at 5:58 PM on August 23, 2011

I work with emergency management-related things in DC and had just finished a conversation about the Colorado quake where I wondered out loud about what an earthquake would feel like. So, uh, sorry guys.
posted by troika at 5:59 PM on August 23, 2011 [13 favorites]

I'm from California, and I'm not laughing at your 5.9. That shit is pretty real. It's the kind of quake you can feel in your bones, even if it doesn't knock over buildings. I think it's pretty disingenuous for any Californian to laugh at a 5.9, even if you did live through Northridge or Bay World Series quake in 1989.

That being said, I haven't seen any Californians laugh at the 5.9 quake. The responses I have heard today is more along the lines of "Oh shit, that's actually pretty big."

Your 4.2 aftershock can suck eggs, though.
posted by jabberjaw at 6:00 PM on August 23, 2011 [8 favorites]

A lot of people (including a lot of Serious People on Twitter) would have looked very stupid if some old pre-code buildings in VA or DC (or that nuke plant near the epicenter) had turned out to be badly damaged after all.

tldr: Wait for the all-clear before you start in with the jokes.

Dude, I've lived in Virginia my whole life. I was very involved in the anti-nuclear politics of the late 70s/early 80s, and my first thought was about the North Anna nuke. Someone upthread mentioned it's on a fault line. That's no exaggeration - it is built directly on a fault line. It's also run by a company that is not the most upstanding corporate citizen around.

The earthquake wasn't that big of a deal mentally, but the what-if scenarios were. It definitely took a little while before I could see the humor.
posted by Benny Andajetz at 6:00 PM on August 23, 2011 [7 favorites]

It looks like the jokesters got lucky, but it was imprudent. A lot of people (including a lot of Serious People on Twitter) would have looked very stupid if some old pre-code buildings in VA or DC (or that nuke plant near the epicenter) had turned out to be badly damaged after all.

But what if it turned out to be really funny damage?
posted by Greg Nog at 6:01 PM on August 23, 2011 [9 favorites]

Most of the straight up jokes I've seen about this earthquake have not stemmed from "West Coasters," so there's no reason to start a coastal turf war. West Coast reactions have been more confused and a bit defensive.

Not necessarily on here, but individuals I know who have been through earthquakes (mainly native west coasters) had this reaction. Not trying to start anything...
posted by DoubleLune at 6:01 PM on August 23, 2011

Thanks, Rhaomi, but I was actually looking for someone Randall Munroe-ier.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 6:03 PM on August 23, 2011

But what if it turned out to be really funny damage?

Like, what if all the modern, secular grotesques on the National Cathedral remained intact, but all the religious icons fell off from quake damage?
posted by hippybear at 6:04 PM on August 23, 2011 [9 favorites]

I'm about 20 miles from the epicenter. We have one picture off the wall, some books fell of the shelves, etc. The really horrible damage is in downtown Fredericksburg. My favorite wine shop lost some very nice bottles of wine. The horror!
posted by COD at 6:04 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anecdata: 5.8 is enough to go all WHA-WHA-WHAT-THE-FUCK IS-THIS-A-GOD-DAMNED-EARTHQUAKE??11?!!?

And then you figure it out and know you're OK and life goes on. But, man, that's a dramatic couple of seconds.
posted by MrMoonPie at 6:08 PM on August 23, 2011 [5 favorites]

Like, what if all the modern, secular grotesques on the National Cathedral remained intact, but all the religious icons fell off from quake damage?

Whoa man I was thinking like rubble in the shape of a butt, but that is actually way better. Many, I would have literally started doing Daily Devotionals to the Disney Gargoyles cartoon if that had happened.
posted by Greg Nog at 6:08 PM on August 23, 2011

I work in Tysons Corner, VA on the 4th floor of a six story building. I have never experienced the earth shake in all my life. Our building started to move side to side. You could see dusk and small debris particles falling out from the light fixtures on the ceiling. I don't know how the folks on the West coast deal with these kinds of occurrences but I think I can safely say that I don't want to experience this ever again.
posted by RedShrek at 6:11 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

From the 19th floor in downtown Manhattan, it was pretty scary. Also, the complete suck of AT&T kept me from talking to my sister in DC for a long time.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:14 PM on August 23, 2011

I was sitting at my desk, and when it hit, I was all, "Wow, the building is shaking! Wait, building's don't shake, that's ridiculous. You must be having a heart attack or something. Uh oh."
posted by Comrade_robot at 6:16 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Here in south-central PA it shook our house long enough for my wife, kids and I to all scramble to a doorway and look at each other stupidly...
posted by Ron Thanagar at 6:18 PM on August 23, 2011

I'm in VA too; I only know what an earthquake feels like because I experienced one last year when visiting San Diego. It was still scary for two reasons, 1. that sudden realization of "oh shit, the building could collapse, or at the very least, something could fall on me" and 2. THAT SHIT JUST DOESN'T DAMN WELL FUCKING HAPPEN HERE.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:18 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Please forgive me, but I must:

MetaFilter: rubble in the shape of a butt
posted by hippybear at 6:21 PM on August 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm just disappointed I didn't feel it. It was pretty interesting to watch every tall building in center city Philadelphia empty out onto the street, though, while trying to determine why. I saw a helicopter overhead, I wish I could find photos of the streets cramed with office workers.

No one I talked to was remotely concerned, although there was some discussion of the earthquake resilience of steel versus masonry buildings.

There's a large excavation for a new tall building next to the one I work in, and quite a few people had thought something had gone wrong with that. Gas explosion was the other frequent guess. There are so many things that could explode around here. Earthquakes (of this size) are much more fun.
posted by sepviva at 6:22 PM on August 23, 2011

Californians Are Being Insufferable About This Earthquake
posted by homunculus at 6:27 PM on August 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

Was Today’s Earthquake Another Boobquake?
posted by homunculus at 6:29 PM on August 23, 2011

Slept through it after a bad experience at dentist's office this morning that left me nauseous and exhausted (nothing dire, just bad reaction to topical anesthetic). Wake up to all this earthquake stuff but not a sign of anything amiss here on upper East Side in Manhattan.

I'm genuinely terrified of earthquakes; I did feel the very small one we had about a week after 9/11—I heard it more than felt it, like a loud, bass boom that woke me up so suddenly I thought the world was ending. Then I realized I was just freaked out by 9/11, prompting an apocalyptic dream.
posted by Maias at 6:29 PM on August 23, 2011

No, no, the earthquake happened today because everyone is stressed as fuck. At least, I am.
posted by limeonaire at 5:40 PM on August 23 [1 favorite −] Favorite added! [!]

I noted the same thing about myself and others today. Lots of tension in the air.
posted by gjc at 6:33 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

36th Floor of Manhattan here. I was just barely realizing that Something Was Happening when it stopped, so I was about to just write it off as my imagination when I heard the woman in the cubicle next to me ask the person to her left, "Did you feel that?"

"You felt that too?" the other person said, as the first person stood up to look out the window.

I stood up at my cubicle too. "Wait, you felt that too?" I asked. Then the person to my left stood up at his cubicle and said he thought he had been the only one. Followed by another guy two cubicles down in the row standing up at his cubicle and asking, "Did anyone feel that?" And then I saw another head popped up past him, followed by another and then another. It was like we were a bunch of really confused prairie dogs trying to do The Wave.

For some reason we all decided it was either wind or a passing truck; the fact that we probably would have felt neither on the 36th floor didn't occur to us. It wasn't until omeone's sister emailed from DC to ask if we were all okay that we finally figured out what had happened.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:34 PM on August 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

Washington Monument damaged, could be closed indefinitely. Laughably Freudian symbol of our national decline in 3... 2... 1...
posted by gerryblog at 6:35 PM on August 23, 2011

The xkcd comic was right because earthquakes travel through the ground at a relatively slow speed. Took 1 minute to hit NYC, I believe, and 2 to march out to Chicago. So at least conceivably, people were getting "OMG, earthquake" texts before the earthquake got to them.
posted by gjc at 6:35 PM on August 23, 2011

Think your region of the US isn't subject to earthquakes? The USGS has plotted the peak ground accelerations for an earthquake that has a 2% chance of occuring in 50 years. Here are the maps for the Eastern US (PDF) and Western US (PDF).
posted by hwyengr at 6:37 PM on August 23, 2011

Washington monument was the first thing that came to mind when I heard the quake was near DC. Hope it's ok.

But if they need to rehab it, here is what I propose. We all know it was capped with aluminum, because at the time, AL was a very precious metal. How about they replace it with gold? That is generations worth of "Oceans 28" or "Goldfinger" style crime capers in the making.
posted by gjc at 6:40 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Think your region of the US isn't subject to earthquakes? The USGS has plotted the peak ground accelerations for an earthquake that has a 2% chance of occuring in 50 years. Here are the maps for the Eastern US (PDF) and Western US (PDF).
posted by hwyengr at 6:37 PM on August 23 [+] [!]

That New Madrid fault scares the crap out of me. But it looks like Montreal has some worryin' to do too.
posted by gjc at 6:41 PM on August 23, 2011

As a Californian who lived in DC, I didn't dismiss the story at all. I remember how much unreinforced masonry I saw on the East Coast, as it always set off my earthquake paranoia. I'm frankly amazed the damage wasn't more extensive than it is.
posted by lekvar at 6:42 PM on August 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

Holy shit
posted by philip-random at 6:46 PM on August 23, 2011 [11 favorites]

My impression was that this quake caused a lot of shaking, felt over long distances, because it occurred exceptionally close to the surface (less than 1km below ground)

I don't think that's right. I'm reading the epicenter was "3.7 miles below ground" (Wikipedia has that too). Some sources are using "more than 3 miles below sea level" for some reason but Mineral's elevation is only ~450 feet, so that still puts it closer to 5 km beneath the surface.
posted by mediareport at 7:00 PM on August 23, 2011

Hey, photo #12 is 6 houses up from mine. The top of their chimney fell off. This is as close as I have ever come to being an internet celebrity.
posted by procrastination at 7:04 PM on August 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'll be working camera at the MLK shindig on the Mall this weekend; one of the guys putting up the delay towers (the scaffold-like structures that support the speaker arrays and video screens that carry sound and pictures to the rear of the crowd) said it felt like somebody ran into the base of the tower with a forklift, but constantly for several seconds. They were a little freaked (only a little -- these aren't super-tall towers, and not much really unnerves the people who hang steel), and then they looked around and saw that there were lots of people down on the oh-so-safe ground who were freaking too.
posted by Shotgun Shakespeare at 7:06 PM on August 23, 2011

It was pretty shallow as earthquakes go, which would make it more powerful in the immediate vicinity, but the unbroken nature of the plate allowed the waves to travel further without as much dissipation of energy.
posted by stbalbach at 7:11 PM on August 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

In the house where I grew up, really severe winds would make the house shudder, and it was never really scary, just weird.
That's pretty much what it felt like here (Pittsburgh), except it wasn't windy.
I thought the neighbors were doing something especially big to their house, which is perpetually under construction.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 7:11 PM on August 23, 2011

My Mom lives in Virginia just outside DC and was doing laundry and first thought the shaking was due to an unbalanced towel in the washer. Especially when she opened the washer and the shaking stopped. Mom : earthquakes :: The Fonz : jukeboxes.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:24 PM on August 23, 2011 [10 favorites]

Having lived in the far north for a long time, I often laugh a bit to myself when, here in the south, whole cities shut down because of 2 inches of snow. So I can understand some minor scoffing at some of the more extreme reactions to a relatively unthreatening earthquake.

Ultimately, however, the most prudent reaction should perhaps be jealousy: for the fact that a relatively large east coast quake is so minor in terms of damage. Just like those in the far north, in the midst of an ice-storm, might be somewhat jealous of those in the south wearing sandals to work in February.

What I find interesting is why people sometimes tend to react with pride to the natural disasters of their region while simultaneously, of course, not wanting to sufffer from them.

Personally, I'd never felt an earthquake before this one. While I did check the news afterwards, out of curiosity, the shaking was no more severe than that which happens to my residence when someone slams the downstairs door. I think most people's reactions were probably similar, outside of a few newsfolk playing up their story, and perhaps some people who live near or have lived through other recent east coast scares.

For the most part, though, I bet people are reacting as to a big thunderstorm--nothing to make you panic, but still kind of interesting to observe, no matter how many times you have or haven't done so previously.
posted by ottimo at 7:30 PM on August 23, 2011

I've noticed that a lot of the people who were worried about it when it was happening were in tall buildings, like RedShrek up there. I was in a basement in Springfield at the time, so while it was strange - never been in an earthquake before - there was seriously no damage or signs of instability whatsoever.
posted by kafziel at 7:35 PM on August 23, 2011

I was eating lunch in downtown DC. No one knew what to do. Eventually they let us back into restuarant. I ordered a Martini shaken, not stirred.
posted by humanfont at 7:47 PM on August 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

As a Californian who lived in DC, I didn't dismiss the story at all. I remember how much unreinforced masonry I saw on the East Coast, as it always set off my earthquake paranoia.

Served with a guy from California. We were inside, no windows, suddenly the ground started shaking. He looks freaked out. He says "Oh, shit! Is it an earthq*BOOM!* ...oh, no, just inbound." He goes back to relaxing.

Although being from the midwest, I suppose I'm more afraid of tornadoes than anything else too. There's no real way to deal with it in situ. Natural disasters don't much care how many sit ups you did that morning.

(Tangent: What's the deal with people linking this to fracking? My knowledge of geology is remedial, but is that even possible? For a major quake I mean (and given stbalbach's description))
posted by Smedleyman at 7:49 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Indian Point nuclear plant was built to withstand a 6.1 earthquake. It's 41 miles from NYC.
posted by nickyskye at 7:55 PM on August 23, 2011

My knowledge of geology is remedial, but is that even possible?

Yes Google fracking earthquake. Don't know about a connection with today.
posted by stbalbach at 7:59 PM on August 23, 2011

No deaths. No major damage to infrastructure. Kinda scary if you haven't been through this before.

Putting this in perspective, each single tornado or hurricane, of which there will be dozens in the next five months, will each do far more damage and loss of life than this incident. Not trying to be a jerk about this , just trying for some perspective. I've driven through Atlanta in 1" of snow and watched the city shut down and cars veer off the streets in panic (wtf?) and I've been in L.A. when an inch of two of rain falling in an evening causes the news reports to proclaim 'Rainmegeddon!' (wtf ? ) .

Sometimes life is boring and sometimes the narrative gets yanked around a bit to make it less boring but it is what it is and fortunately for everyone concerned it was not all that bad really.
posted by Poet_Lariat at 8:13 PM on August 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

I grew up and experienced the Northridge earthquake in a little town (pop. 3000) in the San Jacinto mountains, very near the epicenter. The solid granite mountain additionally magnified the effect, and it, and its aftershock, scared the shit out of me. I was terrified of earthquakes all through childhood. Even living in CA, so near the San Andreas fault, earthquakes aren't really something you grow used to... at least, I didn't, as a child. Although, my brother, much more the thrill-seeker, seemed to love earthquakes.

When my parents later decided to move to western KY, i was completely against the idea... I loved Idyllwild. (Look it up. Who wouldn't.) However, it had two things going for it in my mind: a library open seven days a week (!!!), and no earthquakes. Then I did some more research. Oops, New Madrid fault!

For several years after the move, my "earthquake senses" were still on high alert. For instance, my friend's house had an old furnace that would rumble and shake a bit as it kicked on. The first time it did while I was over, I was off the couch and halfway to a doorway before anyone could say "what". After a while, my fear of earthquakes (and many other things) waned with adulthood. I did live in San Diego for a while, on my own, and while we had a few small earthquakes, nothing too startling. Just the type where you pop your head over the cubicle and say, "Feel something?" and check the USGS to see, yep, 3.0er or whatever.

I live in KY again, near a couple of huge hydroelectric dams (they form the Land Between the Lakes), and I really ought to be more scared of earthquakes than I am, these days. I toured those dams with a local geology professor, as a school field trip. He mentioned earthquake tolerances. "They're designed to withstand a 6.0," he said. There was little comment. I said, "Aren't we very near the New Madrid fault?" He smiled and said, "Yes. It's a problem."

Yikes.
posted by gilrain at 8:39 PM on August 23, 2011

In Japan buildings have sex during an earthquake.
posted by nickyskye at 8:40 PM on August 23, 2011 [4 favorites]

That rambled quite a bit, sorry. My point was mostly to give another southern CAer datapoint who is sympathetic with those who were frightened. An earthquake is bewildering and very scary, especially to those unfamiliar with them. We are more scared of things unknown, even if we are less scared of worse dangers, like severe storms.

I maintain that no natural disaster makes you feel more powerlessly at the mercy of a bizarre, unknowable force than an earthquake. However, my experience is limited to earthquakes and tornadoes. With an earthquake, there is no warning, no time to prepare, either physically or emotionally.
posted by gilrain at 8:48 PM on August 23, 2011

In Boston, the Fire Department was called to inspect a downtown office building that people noticed was leaning after the earthquake. Then they discovered it was always like that.

Plucky Rhode Islanders, meanwhile, vow to rebuild.
posted by adamg at 8:52 PM on August 23, 2011

If a quake happened in DC it must be because of Obama's Fault.
posted by nickyskye at 8:55 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was sitting at my desk with my gut against desk and at first I thought that the greasy burgher that I'd gotten from the cafeteria wasn't sitting well.
posted by octothorpe at 8:58 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

I was born and raised in LA, but this is the first earthquake I've felt from the 10th floor of a building. Not a fan, but then again earthquakes are my one phobia. Cover me in snakes, throw me off a cliff; just don't make me go through an earthquake. My training from birth made me instinctively duck-and-cover beneath my desk, facing away from the windows. (BTW, you should only do the stand-in-the-doorway think if you can't easily duck-and-cover AND if the doorway is on a load bearing wall.) After the shaking, I knew I SHOULD shelter in place, but my entire floor had started down the stairs before the shaking even stopped. So I quickly changed into flipflops, grabbed my bag and followed. I sure as hell wasn't going to stay alone, even if that was safer--more people are injured in that sort of evacuation than from earthquakes, and once outside we were surrounded by other tall buildings which can be even more dangerous should an aftershock hit.
But back to my phobia...
I lay most of the blame on the statewide program, "Shake [fill in the year]", now ShakeOut, wherein my entire elementary school practiced an incredibly detailed and true-to-life all day earthquake drill. My school was hardcore about it. (At this school, during the first week, each student was required to bring in two gallon size ziplocs filled with water bottles, granola bars, other such supplies and a comfort item/memento" such as a family photo. These were kept in a few bankers boxes and would be carried with us to the safety of the playground should we need to evacuate.) Each classroom was given a scene-told what damage occurred to the room/building and how to evacuate. The year our bungalow fell off its foundation and required 30 11 year-olds to pretend to break a window and then climb out of it sure was fun.
But...they also gave out injury stories to several students in each class. Some kids would have a cut or a broken arm and evacuate the room with all the other kids, and then be taken to the triage area so the school could practice that. Those unable to walk [broken leg, etc] were left in the room for the "search and rescue" teams, made up of adults and 6th graders-the oldest kids in the school-to find and evacuate to triage on stretchers. Yes, actual stretchers. The year I was on S&R was also pretty fun.
One year, though I was told that I died. I was given a black yarn-bracelet and carried on a stretcher to the practice MORGUE.
Gee, wonder why I fucking hate earthquakes.

[As an aside, when I was in kindergarten we seemed to have an earthquake once a week for a while-always while I was eating breakfast and watching Mr. Rogers in the kitchen. The TV would go fuzzy as the earthquake hit the station [transmission towers, whatever], and then seconds later I'd feel the quake. My first reaction still to TV snow is to brace for a quake. Also, after a few of those weekly quakes, I wouldn't go to school without a hardhat. Yeah, I was one of the cool kids.
posted by atomicstone at 8:59 PM on August 23, 2011 [3 favorites]

Earthquake Does Less Damage to Washington than Eric Cantor
posted by homunculus at 9:04 PM on August 23, 2011 [5 favorites]

I live in Ohio, and this was an exciting day. I was on the phone with my mom when I felt my chair...sort of rumbling. It stopped for a second, then started again. I didn't see anything shaking, and wasn't sure if I had actually felt anything, but I said to my Mom, "You know how every now and then you see on the news that there was an earthquake, but we never feel or see anything? I think we just had an earthquake."

Then I checked the news a bit later and it was just so. And so today was the very first earthquake that I actually felt. And given how little I felt it, it wasn't actually all that exciting. Which is waaay better than mass death and destruction, so I'll take it.
posted by Ducks or monkeys at 9:13 PM on August 23, 2011

The WSJ comments are full of people saying 'Atlas is shrugging' - I shit you not.

Those dummies. It ain't Atlas, fer chrissakes, it's a giant catfish.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:54 PM on August 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

That was my first earthquake and since my building is literally right on top of a metro stop I thought it was a bomb, and that the building was starting to come down. I don't think I've ever left a building that quickly (and that was after I knew that it was an earthquake). Fucking 9/11.

People talk about hurricanes and tornadoes being worse than earthquakes with regard to loss of life and property damage, and I'm sure they probably are worse, but man, something just feels fundamentally wrong with the universe when the ground and everything around you is shaking vigorously. Don't know how people in seismically active areas deal with that threat of sudden wrongness hanging over their heads every day. I suppose it's bearable if you know your buildings are constructed with earthquakes in mind and are up to code, but you can't be sure of that on the east coast at all. I seriously did not want to go back into my high-rise office building this afternoon. God help us if/when the New Madrid fault ever slips since we are not ready and we will be fucked.
posted by longdaysjourney at 10:37 PM on August 23, 2011 [4 favorites]

For reference (as far as the xkcd comic is concerned) I experienced it (far more dramatically than most of my friends in DC) and then started immediately IMing. We confirmed within about twenty seconds that it was an earthquake, and I IMed a friend in NY, who was incredulous. Two minutes later he confirmed that it had hit there as well.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:48 PM on August 23, 2011

Also, as opposed to the less severe quake I'd experienced in LA once before, I never realized that an earthquake is something you can hear coming. Like, I got some low-level rumbling vibrations before it hit but mostly I was listening to it bearing down louder and louder before the ground started shaking like heavy airline turbulence.
posted by Navelgazer at 10:52 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Finally, as I've definitely been getting some of that 9-11 PTSD anxiety with this today, and looking to compare notes, is anyone else is anyone else in the same boat wishing that they could re-experience the quake just to make sure that they understand everything about it?

Because I am.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:10 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Maybe I just don't hang out with Californian jerks, but my West Coast friends were not smarmy about this at all, they were like "whoa, that must be freaky, you guys aren't even used to the idea of an earthquake."

It was my first earthquake. I realized after a few moments that it was an earthquake. It stopped before I got really worried. My office is in a 100 year-old converted factory in Philly, these things are so solid that it costs a fortune to demolish them, but they did evacuate us so that they could do a walk-through.

I called my mom (near Baltimore) and she didn't even realize that there had been an earthquake. But five hours later, she called me all worried that there was damage to our house -- thanks alarmist local news for making this a Thing! Pretty sure that a bad thunderstorm causes a lot more damage, though.
posted by desuetude at 11:24 PM on August 23, 2011

I live down river from NSWC-Dahlgren in Colonial Beach, VA. NSWC does various range testing in the river and living here you get used to your windows rattling from time to time, and hearing big booms.

Today, I heard it, then felt the house shake for a few seconds, stop, then really shake like hell. During the first shake I was sure it was Dahlgren, as the second started I realized it was not and it scared the hell out of me. I did not like that feeling and, in fact, I am still a bit nervous as we had a couple light aftershocks this evening.


The really horrible damage is in downtown Fredericksburg. My favorite wine shop lost some very nice bottles of wine. The horror!
posted by COD at 9:04 PM on August 23 [+] [!]

There is actually a major gasleak in downtown Fredericksburg, I was listening to the police scanner online as they responded to it. I was also told that part of the Bloom Grocery store at Lee's Hill collapsed but, I am not sure about that.
posted by SuzySmith at 11:29 PM on August 23, 2011

(Not to say that I wasn't like "holy shit, that was an earthquake!")
posted by desuetude at 11:37 PM on August 23, 2011

Don't know how people in seismically active areas deal with that threat of sudden wrongness hanging over their heads every day.

It's pretty much always scary when iy happens. But you do get pretty sensitive to the scale of 'em, and some are a lot less scary than others.

I suppose it's bearable if you know your buildings are constructed with earthquakes in mind and are up to code, but you can't be sure of that on the east coast at all.

No one is "sure" anywhere. My building here in Tokyo? Built in the 80s, and a big one could surely bring it down, if everything happens that way. There's really no certainty.

As concerns my personal experience with quakes, (um, BIG ones) I'll link here to something I posted to MeFi Music after the big 3/11 shaker here, for anyone interested who might've missed it... post-quake Japan report.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:38 PM on August 23, 2011 [2 favorites]

Was reading this when we just had two sharp shakes here in Bay Area, CA.
posted by lucidprose at 11:43 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thread hijack time!

My first Bay Area earthquake.

Cats didn't even raise an eyelid. Dog lifted her had and looked around.

Uncanny animal senses my ass.
posted by schwa at 11:55 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Y'all know Russia and China have HAARP too, right? This is just the beginning.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:55 PM on August 23, 2011 [1 favorite]

Don't know how people in seismically active areas deal with that threat of sudden wrongness hanging over their heads every day.

It's pretty much always scary when iy happens.

Living in an earthquake zone is like driving in rush hour traffic. Anything could happen at any instant but it almost never does. You get used to it. Until something happens. Then you deal with it. Sometimes it kills or maims you. Usually, it doesn't.
posted by philip-random at 12:24 AM on August 24, 2011 [3 favorites]

..and Bukowski rolls in his grave...
posted by L'oeuvre Child at 12:54 AM on August 24, 2011

Putting aside the snark for a moment, desuetude's comment about the 100 year-old converted factory was interesting because this was perhaps a 100 year event. The post-earthquake walk-through made perfect sense.
posted by L'oeuvre Child at 1:09 AM on August 24, 2011

Did Fracking Cause the Virginia Earthquake?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:34 AM on August 24, 2011 [4 favorites]

Living in an earthquake zone is like driving in rush hour traffic. Anything could happen at any instant but it almost never does.

Hmm... guess that all depends on what you mean by "anything". Japan is very much an earthquake zone (heh, like you need me to tell you that) and plenty happens. But if you mean, like, most people don't die in them, well, that would be correct.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 1:38 AM on August 24, 2011

it's hard for me to find this kind of earthquake humor funny

Most of it's generated by people who live in (anf through) disaster zones being amused by the high-profile blind panic a (relatively) small-sounding shake has generated. If I showed a mid-westener the types of tornadoes that are front-page news in New Zealand (IT TORE OFF TWO ROOVES AND DISAPPATED IN 5 MINUTES!) I would expect their first impulse to be to wet themselves laughing.

As far as all the tut-tutting about people finding it funny, well, I hope none of the Serious Business folks have never cracked wise about snow in New ork, never mind lectured the good folks of New Orleans or Los Angeles about the location of their respective cities.
posted by rodgerd at 2:04 AM on August 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's utterly natural for humans to joke about horrible, frightening and disastrous things. It's a reflex action, it's a way of making sense of things, it's the way a lot of people cope with the unpredictable, uncontrollable and frightening world in which we live. It gives us at least the comforting illusion of some kind of control, and/or some kind of acceptance. And such humor has a long and venerable history. The idea that we are to refrain from or silence any expressions of a humorous nature concerning natural or man-made disasters is one that I find personally repugnant. I wouldn't want to live in such a world. Humor is humanity's saviour.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 2:15 AM on August 24, 2011 [6 favorites]

A decent video about the earthquake yesterday.
posted by nickyskye at 4:27 AM on August 24, 2011

I joked with myself about the earthquake, largely because I was awake and alert for the last one here in Maryland, when I was reaching out to hit the snooze button my my alarm clock as the Gaithersburg quake of 2010 rumbled through, and am therefore an old hand at these things. Then, I was irritated because it was the first day of Baltimore's giant art festival, a project that brings me three days of mandatory 15 hour days, and it meant that I needed to suit up and drive into the city hours earlier to check on my two very old facilities.

My 288 foot novelty clock tower built to advertise a tranquilizer-laden hangover remedy was fine, though the long-disconnected 15 foot, 500 pound pendulum was rocking in its little chamber, and I took notes, took pictures, and drove over to check out my 120 year old school building, which also fared well, and then had my forty five hour weekend.

When this one happened, I was home, and it felt different than the stompy, grumbly one last year. The first waves pissed me off because it sounded a lot like my upstairs neighbor clomping around in a mood because his cat had done some horrible cat thing up there, then I was irritated at all the low flying helicopters these days, and then the gutters started to clatter like cash registers and I thought, oh another earthquake, ho hum, and made myself laugh at my Johnny-on-the-spot sarcasm. Peered out the window to see newly-acquired and not yet paid for motorcycle teetering on its center stand and shot out the front door, leaving my dogs to die in the collapsed heap of my already unsteady converted apartment house.

Daisy was in the window as I walked back up, and her ears were up in an accusatory manner, as if to say "yeah, buddy, thanks for saving your fucking motorcycle while your beloved hounds were trapped in the collapsed heap of this already unsteady converted apartment house," and that made me laugh, too. Lou jumped me at the door, all eighteen pound of his microbeagliness battering at me in an excited panic, and I did my Lou voice, a loping Southern drawl, to accompany the torrent of ears.

"Oh mah gawd, Joe, you have no ahdeah what Ah've been through in that churnin' maelstrom of terror! Ah thought Jesus was 'bout to swing low and take my tail home to the Lord just then!"

I laughed at him, and myself, too. I'm a narcissist that way, living in my own one-man sitcom that's very precisely tailored to my tastes.

"C'mon kids, wanna cookie?"

Took a long, relaxed look at the building from the outside, carefully checked out the worry points in the basement, and made myself a cup of tea as I sat down to call into my facilities to check on their status.

Thing was, I'd called in dizzy that morning. I've been having three months of chronic pain from some sort of as-yet undiagnosed nerve issue in my arm and shoulder, and my doctor changed my pain medication to something that apparently caused dizziness, a detail I sussed out after falling down half a dozen times while attempting to get the cover off my bike to ride in to work. The cell networks were locked up, no one at work was answering emails because they were all standing around the Baltimore streets waiting to be let back in to their buildings, and I ended up having to get reports through an insanely intricate chain of connections where I was texting friends in California and having them contact the fire department next to my 288 foot tower, who made a quick visual check and texted me the results.

Am I too dizzy to ride in to the city?

Poured tea down my pants in mid-text, which was a pretty definitive yes, so I took up residence in front of the computer, tracking the news, emailing all my facility contacts to make some reporting connections, and watched the various news feeds. Somewhere along the line, someone on FB posted the tipped-over lawn chair photo and I laughed my ass off for twenty minutes.

I also laughed at the news.

You'd think no one ever heard of New Madrid, to hear the shocked, aghast response to an earthquake here. I mean, there was an earthquake here LAST YEAR. It's not like it last happened in 1842, for chrissakes. The OMG nuclear disaster! panic was a giggler, too, because just because mushy-brained middle class people around here can't remotely conceive of geological events and scales doesn't mean that nuclear plant engineers didn't. People are really programmed to believe in the dumbest things.

"Oh, I thought terrorism was happening!" hollered a neighbor across the street, and I actually snorted, because there's nothing in Laurel. Seriously, nothing. There's the spookiest spookworks in the country just North, but no one's attacking this dying town, unless they've got it in for the twenty-seven nail salons on Main Street.

I was excited, though, waiting for my bigoted, ignorant, Obama-is-a-Muslim next door neighbor to come staggering out of her house to dispense some of that wonderful Randian wisdom distilled from Fox News. I was perched on the porch with my netbook, enjoying the katydids and cicadas singing, when she appeared. She always stands on her porch like a wax replica of Margaret Hamilton, waving at me, for minutes before I stop pretending not to notice her and pretend to care about her idiocy.

Please let her blame black people, I thought with the kind of shuddering orgasmic glee you used to get while peeling the plastic off of a new issue of Inches magazine. Black people and hispanics.

"Joe! Have you heard? The Capitol has collapsed right down to the ground!"

"You don't say. Where'd you hear that?"

"On the news just now! The Washington Monument is leaning! They just said it's going to come down any moment!"

"That's going to be quite a refractory period, then," I said, barely looking up from my netbook and a flurry of nearly identical FB postings from every local FB friend.

"You should watch Fox News. They're the only ones telling the truth!"

Here it comes, oh baby, c'mon Betty, make me proud.

"That's certainly a novel occurrence," I said, in my most withery tone. My neighbor came shambling down the steps, her bones clacking like castanets wrapped in dry leather, and I sort of wanted to throw a pail of water on her, but kept my cool.

"And have you heard? Obama's nowhere to be found! He's on a vacation! Can you imagine? Just because of Ramadan, he's hiding out! And he's not wearing his wedding ring or watch! Didn't I tell you about that guy?"

"He's probably just busy reading 'My Pet Goat,'" I said, in one of those lines just for my own private sitcom. "What should he be doing?"

"He should be helping, but he's really gearing up to confiscate every gun in the country!"

My eyes narrowed. You are really an ignorant, meanspirited lady with an ugly heart.

Up and down the street, all the neighbors are still hanging around in groups, which is both lovely and obnoxious, because I love the camaraderie and hate the feedback loop of non-information that swirls into existence like a cyclone of stupid that whips into existence with every mild change in the meat of the mundane.

"Joe, you should take shelter inside! They're looting at the Laurel Mall!"

Where'd you hear that, idiot? Radio stations in your head?

"Who's looting?" I ask, but I'm mentally chanting. Black people black people black people.

"Hispanics! They're robbing Macy's and raping people!"

SCORE. I love my neighbor. For a writer, the best thing in the world is to live next door to a panicky ninny. I will never run out of material.

"Raping, you say?" I say, and add, "I should make sure I've got enough Crisco, then."

I pause, thinking that that was either over the line of bad taste or just nonsensical enough to pass for polite surrealism, but she derails my train of thought.

"Be safe, Joe!" she says, and darts back into her house, bony fingers working chains and latches and locks. When I take the dogs around the block later, I see her peering out from behind the curtains like Alice Pearce and I feel glad to be alive.

This morning, I'll be back to work, in my hardhat, making notes and photographs, and I'll be chuckling until I'm not. In this life, in this deranged country, you either gotta laugh or cry, and I've had more than enough to cry about. I'm worried about the National Cathedral, which really is one of the last beautiful things we'll ever build in this country, unless we snap out of our stupor, but it ought to be okay.

So far, not dizzy, though I'm taking the back roads to work today.
posted by sonascope at 5:04 AM on August 24, 2011 [23 favorites]

I talked to my mom and a family friend in DC, and it sounds like they were pretty freaked out when it was happening. I think a big part of it is that everyone is already kind of on edge about the 9/11 anniversary. (Dear stupid TV: stop running crap about it. You're causing my relatives flashbacks.) Neither of them went immediately to earthquake as an explanation, and when the tall buildings next to you are swaying and you aren't thinking "earthquake," your immediate explanations can be pretty harrowing. But they're fine, their houses are fine, and they seem pretty nonchalant about it at this point. My mom emailed me that picture of the knocked-over garden chair, so she's seeing the humor in it.

It looks like it's pretty lucky that nobody got hit by the masonry that fell off the Cathedral, though.
posted by craichead at 5:30 AM on August 24, 2011

Infographics junkies can now gorge themselves on a poster from USGS, covering all the currently collected data on yesterday's quake.
posted by elfgirl at 5:42 AM on August 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

This was my first earthquake. I think what was most frightening was that it lasted long enough that I knew what was happening while it was happening. No one thinks "earthquake!" when stuff starts shaking... first we think a car hit the building, or there's a particularly low flying jet going by, or worse... that there's been another attack, which is not a hard conclusion to leap to what with all these 9/11 anniversary commercials that have been flooding the television lately.

I'll take a hurricane any day of the week (actually I will on Saturday) over an earthquake.
posted by sephira at 6:16 AM on August 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

No one thinks "earthquake!" when stuff starts shaking

In Japan, everyone thinks "earthquake!" when stuff starts shaking.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:22 AM on August 24, 2011

In Soviet Union.... aw, fergitit....
posted by mikelieman at 6:24 AM on August 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

We felt it in Toronto, though it was faint, and I didn't think much of it because I worked near an elevated highway and big trucks shake our building a few times a day.
posted by beau jackson at 6:32 AM on August 24, 2011

Oy vey, the damage at the National Cathedral is a bit worse than it looked in the thumbnails. Thousands of ugly, mundane structures in that city and the poor Cathedral gets a whack. Probably something to do with gays, I think.

I was amused when I sat down at my computer immediately afterward, after stuffing the dogs' bark holes with biscuits and convincing my ex/landlord that the building was, in fact, quite perfectly intact, and realizing that the task the quake had interrupted was a detailed search on the internet for a pair of affordable, comfortable leather chaps. It would seem that Fred Phelps was right—god doesn't want me to have affordable, comfortable leather chaps. So screw it, I'm buying kevlar & carbon fiber European all-weather touring pants instead, so that Richmond won't be destroyed by a wayward tsunami. I'm very generous that way.
posted by sonascope at 7:53 AM on August 24, 2011

The OMG nuclear disaster! panic was a giggler, too, because just because mushy-brained middle class people around here can't remotely conceive of geological events and scales doesn't mean that nuclear plant engineers didn't.

Actually, the nuclear plant closes to the epicenter is way high on the list of plants to worry about in case of earthquakes. It is only built to withstand a 5.9 to 6.1. We weren't far from being past that yesterday.

Also, those of us who knew, right away, that the plant was close but the news stations weren't reporting on it were nervous. As soon as I heard that it was widespread, then that the epicenter was in Mineral, I instantly started to worry.

But, then again, I go through those areas, or to that area, a lot and know how close it is. Plus, you do realize that the earthquake in Japan, and subsequent nuclear issue, is still on everyone's minds.
posted by SuzySmith at 8:31 AM on August 24, 2011

The pictures of the damage at the National Cathedral breaks my heart. That has always been my favorite building in, or around, the DC area. We were planning on going to it this fall, as my husband has never been.
posted by SuzySmith at 8:36 AM on August 24, 2011

How the animals reacted to the earthquake at the National Zoo.
posted by gudrun at 9:01 AM on August 24, 2011 [5 favorites]

The first earthquake I was in was a 5.9 (Whittier '87), and I thought I remembered some damage, so I did a bit of searching and found this photo montage.

I swear the building with the text painted on it is the reason I have such a hard time remembering "desert" vs "dessert." Saw it a zillion times before the age of 12, and was too young to get the pun.
posted by epersonae at 9:14 AM on August 24, 2011

It is only built to withstand a 5.9 to 6.1. We weren't far from being past that yesterday.

A magnitude 6.1 earthquake releases more than twice as much energy as a magnitude 5.9 earthquake. That's actually a really large range, considering that there's generally already a safety factor built in (meaning that generally they will rate structures to withstand earthquakes at a lower strength than what they think it can actually withstand). This earthquake was really far from being past that - that's how logarithmic scales work.

Note that I think it's natural to feel nervous about safety after an earthquake. I also think that people should feel nervous about US nuclear plants in general, including their safety in an earthquake.
posted by muddgirl at 9:18 AM on August 24, 2011

So re New Madrid, apparently the Feds ran a training exercise in May of this year modeling what might happen if there was another quake at that fault.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/08/if-earthquake-hit-our-nuclear-plants-nightmare-scenario/41656/

7 million homeless and 100,000 dead.
posted by longdaysjourney at 9:19 AM on August 24, 2011

Uh, 6.1 – 5.9 = 0.2. log₁₀ 2 = 0.301. Or am I confused?
posted by Crabby Appleton at 9:25 AM on August 24, 2011

Damai (a female Sumatran tiger) jumped at the start of the earthquake in a startled fashion. Her behavior returned to normal after the quake.

I can't even imagine how adorable that must have looked - a giant ~500lb tiger leaping like a startled kitteh.
posted by elizardbits at 9:34 AM on August 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Or am I confused?

The Richter scale measures magintude, not energy. The Wikipedia page is pretty technical, but if you scroll down there's a table which compares Richter scale magintudes to approximate energy equivalents.

Because of the logarithmic basis of the scale, each whole number increase in magnitude represents a tenfold increase in measured amplitude; in terms of energy, each whole number increase corresponds to an increase of about 31.6 times the amount of energy released, and each increase of 0.2 corresponds to a doubling of the energy released.

posted by muddgirl at 9:37 AM on August 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Bad Astronomy blog has a video showing the propagation of the earthquake waves across the US.
posted by dirigibleman at 9:51 AM on August 24, 2011 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: either over the line of bad taste or just nonsensical enough to pass for polite surrealism
posted by dhartung at 9:55 AM on August 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Thanks, muddgirl.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 10:02 AM on August 24, 2011

Fantastic photo of an Arlington swimming pool during the quake.
posted by MrMoonPie at 10:37 AM on August 24, 2011 [2 favorites]

Did Fracking Cause the Virginia Earthquake?
posted by flapjax at midnite

Flapjax's link is very interesting; the evidence that fracking can cause earthquakes appears to be strong.

Fracking is the process of initiating and subsequently propagating a fracture in a rock layer, employing the pressure of a fluid as the source of energy.[1] The fracturing, known as a frack job (or frac job),[2][3] is done from a wellbore drilled into reservoir rock formations, in order to increase the extraction rates and ultimate recovery of oil and natural gas and coal seam gas.

Hydraulic fractures may be natural or created by human activity...

There happens to be a name for a large, natural "fracture in a rock layer."

We call them "faults."

And faults are attended by a great multitude of smaller fractures, as well, so I would be surprised if a map of fracking injection sites did not partly coincide with a map of known fault lines.

Did frackers know they would probably cause earthquakes?

I don't see how they could possibly plead ignorance given that the Rocky Mountain Arsenal injection well produced all those earthquakes in the Denver area in the 60s.

I'd also be surprised if a comprehensive map of fracking injection well sites was all that easy to come by.
posted by jamjam at 11:38 AM on August 24, 2011

Spread of Earthquake-Related Tweets
posted by homunculus at 1:20 PM on August 24, 2011

So let's see, the conventional, middle-brow wisdom is that our current energy future abso-smurfly has to be dependent on a controversial new energy extraction technique (fraking) that evidence strongly suggests causes increased earthquake activity, and another (nuclear), that has proven to be a massive earthquake damage multiplier, and that's the best we can do, even with solar finally available on market at grid parity? Lovely.
posted by saulgoodman at 1:41 PM on August 24, 2011

Some people argue that the smaller quakes from fracking might reduce the odds of a bigger quake. The theory is that by sorting the rocks slip a bit, you reduce pressure on the fault, this reducing the stored energy. My geology prof mentioned this quite casually many years ago. However he also noted that one could also have a chance of triggering a big quake. The difficulty verifying either conjecture was seen as a reason to leave things alone. Too late now I guess.
posted by humanfont at 2:44 PM on August 24, 2011

We just had another aftershock about 40 minutes ago, so four earthquakes total so far.
posted by SuzySmith at 10:45 PM on August 24, 2011

Yeah 1:08am EDT
posted by stbalbach at 10:56 PM on August 24, 2011

A magnitude 6.1 earthquake releases more than twice as much energy as a magnitude 5.9 earthquake. That's actually a really large range, considering that there's generally already a safety factor built in (meaning that generally they will rate structures to withstand earthquakes at a lower strength than what they think it can actually withstand). This earthquake was really far from being past that - that's how logarithmic scales work.

But it's equally misleading not to consider depth and the type of motion.
posted by rodgerd at 3:26 AM on August 25, 2011

Rick Perry 2012: Or Else!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 5:19 AM on August 25, 2011

But it's equally misleading not to consider depth and the type of motion.

Well, of course depth and type of motion matter, but I don't have the design information for the nuclear plant in question, so I can't really consider it. All I can do is look at the numbers that have been presented.
posted by muddgirl at 6:50 AM on August 25, 2011

So here it is, now two days later: the National Cathedral is closed due to the damage it received; three of four spires were broken off, as well as numerous smaller elements. The Shithsonian museums are all open, with the exception of the Castle: interior and exterior wall damages (more serious than first thought, unfortunately) plus some toppled chimneys, all on the side facing the National Gallery of Art. The Washington Monument is closed: large cracks, including at least one where they can see daylight through the wall.

Personally, I was on the 16th floor of a highrise when it happened; I had no idea what it was, but guessed either terrorism (it's not far at all from here to the Pentagon or the 9-11 10th anniversary) or else a car hitting the building: 'earthquake' never entered my mind while I rode my bouncing couch.....
posted by easily confused at 7:54 AM on August 25, 2011

oh heck: that's 'SMITHSONIAN'......
posted by easily confused at 7:55 AM on August 25, 2011

Shitsonian Museums, I see a new right wing insult emerging as they attempt to require the tourists to pay a fee for entrance and get upset about various frivolous exhibits, research and artwork there-in.
posted by humanfont at 9:19 AM on August 25, 2011

(one extremely big & embarrassed facepalm....)
posted by easily confused at 9:42 AM on August 25, 2011

But it's equally misleading not to consider depth and the type of motion.

So what I hear you saying is that it's not the size of the boat, but the motion of the ocean? In other words, as you said, depending on the angle of the dangle, increased by the heat of the meat, and with the proposition that all men are not created equal; so why frown?
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 9:44 AM on August 25, 2011

I've heard that the Republican leadership in the House is refusing to fund repairs to the Washington Monument without further spending cuts.
posted by humanfont at 1:26 PM on August 25, 2011

Heck, Cantor won't fund repairs to his own district without further spending cuts.
posted by Rhaomi at 1:48 PM on August 25, 2011

With Hurricane Bearing Down Cantor Spox Says Disaster Relief Should Be Paid For With Spending Cuts
posted by homunculus at 4:56 PM on August 25, 2011

Cantor, as many of us in the fair Commonwealth of Virginny know all to well, is an idiot.

Unfortunately, a photogenic & electable-in-his-extremely-conservative-district idiot.....
posted by easily confused at 5:19 PM on August 25, 2011