5.4 Earthquake rattles St. Louis

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Earthquake… and wakes me up!

I woke up to the sound of things shaking in my bedroom.   Then I could feel the house shake.  The clock said 4:39.  I got up, looked outside but couldn’t see anything.  I walked into my office and could hear things rattling around on my desk. This went on for a couple of minutes before it subsided.  I knew immediately that it was a quake.  It subsided after that.

I turned on the TV and for about 15 minutes there were no news bulletins or anything about the incident.  Then we got the info:

A 5.4 earthquake centered in West Salem, IL shook the St. Louis metro area early Friday morning. The quake happened at 4:37 a.m.  The epicenter is 127 miles from St. Louis.

Reports of feeling the quake are coming far east Illinois and far west and southern Missouri.

More on earthquakes from Wikipedia

Update:

Now, they’re saying it was a 5.2 earthquake.  No real structural damge around here.  There was onh bridge overpass on Kingshighway that was closed for an hour or so becuase some debris fell from it.  It’s a very old bridge anyway… but they determined that it was still structurally sound and they reopened it.  I did hear on the radio that a higheway in Indiana (near the epicenter) had cracked from the quake.

There was an aftershock around 10 am, but I didn’t feel it at work, though I talked to people who did.  They expect a few more of lesser and lesser magnitudes.

Update 2:

Cheryl B sends along a link to the U.S. Geological Service Earthquake Hazards page.  It’s loads of nerdy fun.  You can check out your local quake, get all the info on it and aftershocks.  It’s also nerdy fun to do the “Did you feel it?” and look at the map to see where it was felt, and how intensely.

It shows there have been several aftershocks from this earthquake.    Interesting stuff.

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20 thoughts on “5.4 Earthquake rattles St. Louis”

  2. we felt it here in Louisville Ky as well! woke me from a sound sleep. Didn’t know what had just happened, I was thinking something exploded. never thought it was an earthquake until I turned on the tv. wild!

  8. I live in Festus, MO. I woke up, sat in bed wondering, why is everything shaking? Then I got a text message from a friend saying, did you feel that? I knew after that I wasn’t going crazy. 🙂

  10. It woke me up here in Indy, I jumped from my bed thinking that a tornado had hit the house and I started to head for the basement. Looking outside, there was no storm and the shaking had stopped. I stood there bewildered and sleepy wondering what had just happened. As I am writing this, so help me God another one just hit!!!!!!!! This is so weird!!!!!!

  11. “I got up, looked outside but couldn’t see anything. I walked into my office and could hear things rattling around on my desk. This went on for a couple of minutes before it subsided. I knew immediately that it was a quake. ”

    That is going to kill a lot of people when a truly big one hits not-West Coast.

    “I knew immediately” after wandering around while it is all going on?!??

    Lack of preparedness (stuff on high shelves, shelvs, book cases and filing cabinets not tied down, equipment not braced, unsafe construction practices, and not knowing what to do when one hits)m is going to kill people that didn’t need to die.

    (The correct action is it identify the problem when it first starts, get yourself and others near-by under an interior doorway or under a sturdy table.)

    About the only thing that you did right (according to your report) was run outside, but standing next a window is almost as bad.

  12. Greenfield, IN. Only felt it for roughly 10 seconds, but it was still pretty neat. It woke me, then lulled me back to sleep.

  13. Larry,
    Thanks for pointing out that I’m an idiot. Of course I already knew that. I can’t write every sentence first… but I knew it was an earthquake immediately… before I walked around the house.
    It wasn’t so strong that I felt the house was in danger of collapsing or anything near that…. it just woke me up and got my attention.
    I don’t have stuff on high shelves that could have endangered anyone if it fell…. well except for that stuffed monkey on top of my dresser. And the stuffed pig sitting on top of the TV…which is about 3 foot of the floor. So, I guess it could have fallen on my foot if I was standing right in front of the TV during the quake.
    Technically, you’re right… people should be prepared for earthquakes or any other disaster.
    My house sits atop a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. The main reason I looked out the window was to make sure I still had a back yard… and it hadn’t fallen off into the river. That would have made a believer out of me right quick!
    Anyway, thanks for the pointers and everyone be careful out there.
    It could happen to you next.
    Jonco

  14. …will wade in with some comments…I live on the west coast and have been through a lot of quakes including Loma Prieta quate of 1989…some advice…keep a pair of shoes under your bed…broken glass is not pleasant to walk on…keep a wrench next to your gas line…you many need to turn it off…have a out of state contact let all your friends and family know the contact…glad to know your safe…

  15. …or you could just take your chances living in an area that only has chartable quakes once every forty years…that’s actually a fairly safe way to live life, too. 🙂 A lot of us who live in the St. louis area may not even see another one in our lifetime, much less one that could do any real damage.

    The knee-jerk reaction people around here are having would make you think 9.7 quakes happen every day or something, when we basically just had our only 5.2 in like 40 years…and an aftershock of 4.something alongside about six 1s and 2s near the epi-center. It’s pretty much over, most professionals seem to think.

    Frankly, I’m not so paranoid and stupid as to sell all my books because of it. There’s a BIG difference between waking up and realizing there’s a tremor and waking up and realizing you MUST get to safety…and most of the people I know actually slept right through today’s…so…yeah…sorry, I’ll be keeping the art on my walls, since it didn’t even go askew. We’re in FAR greater danger when it rains, around here.

    (FYI – Yes, I know we live near the New Madrid Fault Line…I also know earthquakes of the magnitude of the one that happened in 1811 only happen every 500-1000 years, and by basic mathematic principles…them’s good odds.) 🙂

    Hope this post doesn’t sound holier-than-thou…it’s just that I’ve actually read up on it in the past, and having facts in your corner can do a lot for your confidence level.

  16. I live 30 miles east of Nashville when the quake happened and I felt it. I had no idea what was happening at the time, my chair was shaking, my desk was minutely rattling. It happened about 15 or more seconds. Maybe it’s a good thing I stay up so late.

  17. We had an earthquake here in England… about forty-five miles away from my home. I was sitting at my computer at the time.
    So I was the instapublisher….
    http://tinyurl.com/6qd4rk

    Thing is, it’s the first one I ever felt in England. When I lived for a while in Iceland, which straddles two continental plates, they were commonplace, little quakes….
    But here?
    I wondered if maybe somebody had been doing a bad bit of building work, like taking out a wall and leaving a section above unsupported, and a house in the street had collapsed?
    So I went to my window too.
    Whilst I understand all your quake-savvy commenters talking knowledgeably of bracing, and high shelves… No. Earthquakes are not regarded as a hazard here. Maybe a little less to worry about than airliners falling out of the sky.
    I shall take no special precautions.

    Let this comment be my epitaph when ‘the big one’ hits.

  18. ^^ i felt that down here in essex! god knows how many miles away from that is but its a good hundred or more… how weird…why are random places getting earthquakes? is it war of the worlds come to life?!!? :O

  20. I slept through it here in the western suburbs of Chicago, but lots of people here felt it. My cat was a little wonky that morning, but that’s about it. The last one this big happened near the same area, but that was about 6 months before I was born, in 1968. If the next one happens in another 40 years, I think being near 80, I won’t care much about it.

    I think the bigger annoyance that morning was the incessant “reporting” of the quake on all the local news programs. If they spent every possible instant on this minor event, what in the world will they do to amp up their coverage when a truly bad earthquake hits?

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