bentley ([info]bentleywg) wrote,
@ 2008-04-18 05:07:00
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Magnitude 5.4 southern Illinois/Indiana
Magnitude 5.4 - ILLINOIS



Earthquake Details
Magnitude 5.4
Date-Time
* Friday, April 18, 2008 at 09:36:56 UTC
* Friday, April 18, 2008 at 04:36:56 AM at epicenter

Location: 38.520°N, 87.873°W
Depth: 5 km (3.1 miles) set by location program
Region: ILLINOIS
Distances
* 12 km (7 miles) E (90°) from West Salem, IL
* 13 km (8 miles) NE (53°) from Bone Gap, IL
* 14 km (9 miles) W (266°) from Allendale, IL
* 36 km (22 miles) WSW (241°) from Vincennes, IN
* 67 km (41 miles) NNW (335°) from Evansville, IN
* 206 km (128 miles) E (93°) from St. Louis, MO


Nope, didn't feel it (I'm in the northwest Chicago suburbs). I woke up on my own at 4:45, about 10 minutes after that. If dog felt it--she was sleeping in the hallway--she didn't come looking for me.

It's interesting listening to the Chicago-area local news shows, because they have no background on this. Folks who were awakened by the shaking (including one just 10 miles south of me) are phoning in. Someone who used to live in San Francisco phoned Chicago's 311, but they didnt' know anything. So she phoned one of the SF local news shows, who told her about the earthquake, so she phoned 311 back and told them. Funny.

EDIT: Huh. Someone from my town was awakened by it.

EDIT: another funny phone in: (paraphrased) "I didn't feel anything. I was out walking my dog--I live in a high rise--and my neighbor sticks her head out the window and says, 'We just had an earthquake. It woke me up.'."

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[info]aelfgyfu_mead
2008-04-18 12:06 pm UTC (link)
Dang, I miss all the excitement! We had one or two earthquakes in the Midwest while I lived there, and my Dad noticed one, but I didn't.

Of course, after the hurricane evacuation a few years back, I should have had my fill of near-disasters.

I do wonder, since you woke not so long after it, if you didn't feel it in your sleep enough to be disturbed.

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[info]bentleywg
2008-04-18 12:12 pm UTC (link)
It's not uncommon for me to wake up about that time. I usually just roll over and go back to sleep till the alarm goes off.

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[info]kirbyfest
2008-04-18 12:25 pm UTC (link)
Dead to the world, that's us here at Chez Kirbyfest.

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[info]bentleywg
2008-04-18 12:28 pm UTC (link)
My guess is that the local folks who felt it were up in high rises or on the second floor of older wooden houses.

(One of the early phone-ins was a woman in a high-rise in Tinley Park who was so surprised to feel anything "this high up off the ground." Lady, *that* is why you felt it.)

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[info]bentleywg
2008-04-18 03:12 pm UTC (link)
There were a couple of signs of something at work. Manga books on display had tumbled to the floor; and one of the self-checks had a new layer of dust, as if the ceiling had shaken a bit. That's all around here.

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[info]nitasee
2008-04-18 02:03 pm UTC (link)
I heard about that this morning and thought of you and [info]kirbyfest. Darn, you slept through all the excitement. I guess this is part of the New Madrid fault?

Several years ago there was a natural gas explosion around Brenham that registered on the Richter scales. I remember that it moved in waves across the building in was in. My friend who grew up in California said that what an earthquake felt like.

Edited at 2008-04-18 02:03 pm UTC

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[info]bentleywg
2008-04-18 03:07 pm UTC (link)
The first earthquake I remember was a 7.9 in 1970 (the one that buried Yungay in 15 feet of mud).

The next big one was the 8.1 in 1974. That one was much closer to home and I was up on the 10th floor when it hit. That one felt like a double: one went up and down, the other one went side to side, and they overlapped for a few seconds. I couldn't really tell when it stopped because my knees were shaking so hard.

Lots of others, of course, but not historic.

I do have a story about the 8.1 in 1966. My Peruvian grandmother was babysitting us that day. Hours later, when my mother finally made it home, she reported to my mom that the kids hadn't freaked out, thanks to her calm and collected behavior. That evening, I told my mom all about the exciting day: Jesus, Joseph, and Mary had beat on the walls and made the house shake and wouldn't stop until mamita yelled at them to stop. Calm and collected. Shyeah.

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[info]nitasee
2008-04-18 03:40 pm UTC (link)
I think you've had a bit more excitement than me.

But, hey, I've been in several hurricanes and two tornadoes in my lifetime! (Admitly, I can't remember the first tornado since I was an infant at the time.)

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[info]bentleywg
2008-04-18 04:05 pm UTC (link)
Never seen a tornado. Closest I've come to a hurricane was when Gloria was threatening to go up the Chesapeake and stayed at the mouth of it for *hours* making up its mind before moving northward, so the D.C. TV stations kept interrupting Peter Davison's two-hour episode of Magnum, P.I. to update us on Gloria's lack of decision.

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[info]nitasee
2008-04-18 04:19 pm UTC (link)
I've seen tornadoes in a distance. I do remember once, when I was in junior high school seeing on start forming practically over head - until one of the teachers realized what we were looking at and herded us all inside and in the central wall. That came to naught.

I was staying at my parents house during college when one went over the house during the night. That was plenty freakish, thank you. Sick green light pouring in all the windows, everything hitting the roof, the dog pawing everone awake (as if we weren't already). Considering the damage was pretty minor: tore off the back side of the house and lifted an ancient elm tree and deposited it on the other side of the house and on my car.

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[info]bentleywg
2008-04-18 04:29 pm UTC (link)
I've been in town while they had small tornados, but I wasn't right there and I never saw the funnel cloud. Sorry about the car.

My mom told me about a tornado that lifted a house off its foundations, turned it around, and put it right back on the foundation. (This must've been before indoor plumbing and electricity.) So they moved the driveway to where the front door had moved to and were set.

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[info]jennetj
2008-04-18 03:18 pm UTC (link)
I felt it. I woke up wondering why my body was trembling. Then I realized it was the bed. Then it stopped and I thought "well, that was weird" and rolled over and went back to sleep. When the radio alarm woke me, the first news I heard was the earthquake, and I went "aha!"

I just felt what felt like an aftershock (10:17am cdt) - either that or it was vertigo....

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[info]bentleywg
2008-04-18 04:25 pm UTC (link)
Not vertigo. The aftershock was 4.5. It wasn't strong enough to move the rollie chair I was on, but was strong enough to wobble the wobbly seat under me. It felt like my butt was dancing. (Sorry about the visual, but it's the only way I can describe it.)

Edited at 2008-04-18 04:26 pm UTC

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