Earth Quake rocks Illinois

[Barklessdog]

I was sitting in my car this morning waiting for my workout place to open and it felt like someone was playing a joke on me & bouncing my car up & down. I looked back and no one was there, then I looked down at my keys and they were swinging back n forth in the ignition.

Turns out we had a 5.4 earth quake in centered in Southern Illinois!

[gweimer]

When I was going to school down in Champaign, at the Univ of Ill, we had a small quake one afternoon.  I was going out of the back door of  the house, and thought I had tripped out the door.  The farm boys told me it was a small quake.  They also said it wasn't uncommon for that to happen in southern Illinois.  Now a 4.5 sounds a little out of the ordinary, and if you felt it in Chicago, well, that's pretty unusual.

I'm getting my foil hat on for the rest of the day.

[Barklessdog]

They said on the news people felt it in Indiana & southern Ohio

[Max Soren]

That earthquake was felt as far south as North Alabama, where I am at the moment.  I didn't personally feel it but people 20 miles from here are reporting that they did. 

[Dave W]

I heard this was on a northern extension of the New Madrid fault. If so, it's no surprise that it was widely felt. Most people have never heard of the huge New Madrid quake in the early 1800s but it was as strong or stronger than the great San Francisco quake and the damage was over a much larger area. Another big one will come someday and needless to say it's a lot more populated than 200 years ago.

[TBird1958]

 First one for you guys? Seattle's see its share, my first was in 1965, most recent about 6 years back now. During that one a large TV fell off the wall at my work and almost hit me......after getting out of the building and across the street to a parking lot with co-workers we could actually see the ground moving in waves.....crazy! 

[Max Soren]

First one for you guys? Seattle's see its share, my first was in 1965, most recent about 6 years back now. During that one a large TV fell off the wall at my work and almost hit me......after getting out of the building and across the street to a parking lot with co-workers we could actually see the ground moving in waves.....crazy! 

I've been in and/or around plenty of tornadoes and hurricanes.  But watching the ground moving in waves sounds like a nightmare scenario to me. 

[TBird1958]

 "I've been in and/or around plenty of tornadoes and hurricanes.  But watching the ground moving in waves sounds like a nightmare scenario to me."

 I'd have to say tornadoes and hurricanes are far more frightening to me. All of you that regularly deal with them.......wow! you have my respect, they scare the crap outta me. 

[Darrol]

Been a while since I felt a quake. I think the last one was when there was like a 6.0 out around Redlands about 3 years ago.

[the mojo hobo]

I'm in Northwest Ohio and it woke me up. I knew right away it was an earthquake, wondered how big and how far away it was and went back to sleep.

Later, searching the internet for news I found the Ohio Seismic Network and a link to report an earthquake http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/cus/ that is for the central US. The highlighted event is the one that made the news, others appear as they are reported and disappear if they are not confirmed. You can see a map of reports in the area showing how severe it felt by region, and a list of cities the reports came from, how many reports, and the severity. Pretty cool.