The earthquake on August 23rd was the first I’ve ever experienced. There was an earthquake last year, but it happened in the middle of the night. This time I was at my desk at work. At first, I thought there was a gym class running in place upstairs. Then I felt it at my feet. I got up from my desk and backed away. I thought the ceiling was going to cave in! For me, that was the scariest part. I don’t trust being in an 8 floor concrete building during an earthquake. My coworkers and I ran for the stairs and we were outside in under a minute.
Everyone outside tried to use their cellphones to make a call. The result was like a scene from the movie Die Hard: With a Vengeance. In the movie, the bad guy called into a radio station and said there was a bomb in a school. Everyone listening to the radio broadcast tried to call 911 at the same time, so all of the phone lines stopped working. After the earthquake, cellphone calls wouldn’t work. During a big emergency it is best to send a text message, because they have a better chance of getting through.
Using my phone I was able to check out the USGS earthquake website. The website shows data from all over the world using interactive maps. In fact, the earthquake was first reported by a NOAA station in Alaska.
This is the map for the Virginia earthquake shown on the USGS website:
There are a few boxes over Virginia. The largest box was the magnitude 5.8 earthquake that happened at 1:51 PM. The smaller boxes are from the aftershocks that happened later: the biggest was magnitude 4.2 at 8PM, and the last one was at 12:45 AM (Actually, there have been a few more aftershocks since I started writing this article!).
You can also use the USGS earthquake website to see historical data. Here is a seismograph from the Maryland Geological Survey from the time of the earthquake:
When there is an earthquake, waves actually travel through the ground. Seismometers display these waves by drawing graphs. If there is no movement, the seismometer will show a straight line. In the above seismograph, the green lines were drawn during the 5.8 magnitude earthquake. The lines were cut off because the seismometer couldn’t draw long enough lines to show the whole picture! We usually don’t get big earthquakes around here.
The earthquake was scary, but there wasn’t much damage to structures. The metro was operating slow for safety and for inspections. My work closed early in order for inspections as well. In the end, most damage to buildings in the area was limited to cracks in drywall.
The earthquake caused some damage to the National Cathedral. The cathedral has four large spires on top, and some parts fell off. One of the angels fell onto the roof. The building itself had some cracks, but nothing serious. There were a few apartment buildings damaged in Prince George’s county to the extent that people had to stay in shelters.
The earthquake was felt for hundreds of miles along the east coast. It was the strongest we’ve had in forty years, but it didn’t last very long. I’m glad there wasn’t much damage, and especially glad that everyone is safe.
