A 5.9 only 7 miles down is a big quake, even by our standards. Everyone OK out there?
Redwolf
I’ve never felt an earthquake before. I’d seen a picture shaking on the wall when a 4 or so hit in Maine years ago. This time I was at my desk and saw my monitor shaking. I thought it looked the same, then ten seconds or so later the building started to lurch. I thought it was kind of cool, but wouldn’t want much more to happen. It lasted altogether probably 30-40 seconds. I’m about 100 miles from the epicenter; I know there’s one Chiffster around Goochland, which is right on top of it.
We were sent home early, which I thought was kind of extreme till the reports of damaged buildings started coming in. Given the nature of where I work, definitely much better safe than sorry.
One thing I noticed when we lived in North Carolina was the number of brick buildings…something you don’t see a lot of in California because they have a distressing tendency to fall down during earthquakes. That was my first concern when I saw the report.
Redwolf
Some people in the outside offices of our 5-story
office building felt the shakes (all the way in Raleigh!)
while I, in an internal office, went on in blissful ignorance.
I know what you mean about the bricks. NCSU has an
entire yard paved with the things. We call it the “brickyard”,
though I would have gone with “grassless hell”.
I was in the elevator on the sub-basement of a building about 3 blocks from the white house. We felt everything shake for about 30 seconds, and lost power for about 5 minutes. The guy in the elevator with me went nuts. heh
In Kanawha County and in Morgantown, WV they felt the earthquake. They left a 7 floor building. I was in a 3 story building in the country, I didn’t feel a thing. My wife felt the earthquake in St. Albans. The dog gave no warning and didn’t even wake up from her nap.
Man, Vancouver is SO going to get it, and soon. If I could, it’d be a great time to move away.
Did Vancouver get any shaking from that quake that hit Seattle a few years back?
Redwolf
I have discovered that when one is swimming in the Atlantic Ocean in the OBX of NC during an earthquake in Virginia one does not feel the earth move. I have also discovered what it is like to to be ordered out of a vacation home by 8:00am 8/25/2011 in the OBX due to an impending possible Cat.3 hurricane named Irene. What a bummer, missed the quake and now I’m going to miss the storm, maybe some good birds will blow up this way from the Caribbean.
You’re still gonna get the storm; it’ll probably even still be a hurricane where you are.
It’s looking like we’ll miss most of the wind here this time, thankfully. Last time, six years or so ago, we took a limb through the roof, and a couple of homes in our neighborhood were destroyed.
I was in Durham for Hurricane Fran…one hurricane is enough for me, I think! I guess it’s a case of “the devil you know…”.
I seem to collect natural disasters. I was in Spokane for Mount St. Helens, in Monterey for the Loma Prieta earthquake and in Durham for Fran. Dontcha just want to be my neighbor? 
Redwolf
Were you living in Spokane at the time or does this just happen when you travel?
I was living there. I grew up in Spokane.
The ironic thing is that I had been at school in Lacey (I did my first two years at St. Martin’s College), where we could see Mount Saint Helens on a clear day, and we had been watching it nervously for weeks. Then I went home to Spokane, and we got ashed. Seriously ashed.
Lived in Monterey for Loma Prieta and in Durham for Fran.
Redwolf
Ah, I was 3 freeway hours north and a bit west. Saw it on the news…
Not in the seven or eight years that I’ve been here.
there was a 6.8 Feb 28, 2001
there’s only been a couple of 5+ since,
bunch of 3-4.9s