The AM Forum

Just as I was hitting the "post" button in another thread the proverbial szht hit the fan!!

A magnatude 5.8 rocked the east coast! !  Our whole building was shakin pretty good. Everyone in here went outside for safety. They say we have had several here in the past, but this is the first one I have actually took notice of. It was pretty eerie!

I just looked at it as a good excuse to go out and catch a smoke  ;D  ;D

That's right, folks, you heard it here first on AmFone! ! ! !

Yep, felt here in NJ. Was sitting at my desk when it started rocking. Rocking...pause, then more rocking.

Now upgraded to 6.0 centered between Richmond and Charlottesville. Big time shaking here in Columbia, MD. Time to fire up those emergency nets!

Wife just told me two boxes of oatmeal fell over.  ;D

Frank--did you say catch a smoke???
It'll stunt your growth.
When my 82 year old mother in law was expiring from lung cancer she wanted me to unhook all of the plumbing and run her outside for a smoke.

No shakes in the midwest--maybe tonite when we fire up on 3885.

Glad you are kicking......and puffing?
Really???

It was felt in Cleveland and Akron, Ohio but not here in Lorain.

We were shaking pretty good near BDL I thought it was the shaker table on the first floor but it didn't stop. They just let us back in the building.

I cant (and don't) drink. The liver cirrhosis will probably get me before that does, so what the hey, ya gotta have some type of vice  ;D  ;D And besides, a coffee without a cigarette is like.......................  ;D

A very unusual phenomenon for youse' guys location! ;)

The shakin', that is.

73DG

Just called the family back home in MD and they hardly felt it.  My wife was at Safeway and didn't know it happened until she saw a gaggle of women chattering about it.

My family was in a mall 10 miles away buying school supplies and felt nothing.

I felt swaying here on Long Island at approx 1:52 PM and thought that it felt like a possible quake.  News later confirmed that that was what it was.  I'm surprised it occurred so far away and felt here and even further north.

 

We really felt it up in E. PA.  Martha called from work which is about 15M East of here and they evacuated some buildings in West Chester. 

The only damage here is my "Getto" XTAL for 3.880 cracked  ;)

Joe, W3GMS

No biggie, now you have TWO for 40m... ;)

73DG

It was business as usual in the shipyard here in Groton.  The ground is always shaking and rumbling.  The workers could've dropped a sub and nobody would've noticed.

Came home and noticed a couple of wall hangings slightly crooked but they could've been crooked before the shake.

Checking the foundation.

Didn't feel a thing here.  I work in the basement of a large building, so maybe I'm glad I didn't.

I was driving home from work at the time and did not feel or hear anything here in CT .  Tough to hear anything over the cat  only (broken) exhaust on the old 94 Escort!  I first heard about it from some folks talking about it at the town dump at about 2:15.  Then got calls from guys at work saying that no one was answering their government office phones down in the DC area - apparently they evacuated a lot of buildings down there.  Put on WCBS 880 AM where they were in big breaking news mode.

Diane said she was here at home and felt a slight rumble - and that the cat jumped up like it had seen a ghost - she didn't make the connection to an earthquake until I told her about what time it happened.

Finally got a hold of the ball and chain after 1 1/2 hours of dealing with jammed up 23 cm CB. A lot of plates and dishes busted up, and a cracked window in the living room.

The reason quakes on th east coast are felt further than on the west coast is the bedrock is more solid and not as fractured from many previous fault lines.

Mother Nature must be busy today..

We had a 5.3 quake last night at 11:45 PM, centered in southern Colorado, the biggest quake in the state since 1967. There were three distinct quakes in quick succession.

""Here we go again, there's another one starting. We got to get out of here," said Garry Ringo, owner of Ringo's Super Trading Post in the small town of Segundo, Colo., as bottles on shelves rattled in the background during an interview with The Associated Press."

Ringo estimated he lost thousands of dollars' worth of liquor and soda.

All of those bottles of JD smashed on the floor.  :o

Gonna be interesting when the New Madrid fault trips and moves the Mississippi river again..

felt it up here in CT, pretty much everyone in the office did, the building was shaking

What earthquake ??? ??? ??? Did not feel a thing here in Albany, NY.

My son in Lee, MA said if felt more like a large truck passing by with loud rumble and little to no shake.

i didn't know anything about it till one of the teachers in the school I go to was talking about feeling it. funny thing is, the one who was talking about it was the one whose room I was in when it happened and i didn't even feel it or know about it until about 20 minutes later. the teacher even said that at first he didn't even think it was an earthquake, he thought it was the teacher in the room above his jumping around about something, she seems to do that pretty regularly. wonder how many EMCOMM groups activated themselves in anticipation of a major disaster?

It shook our building in south Baltimore pretty bad. My compuker monitor was shakin bad enough that you couldn't read it. I also thought it might have been a truck, or the train tracks 100yds away till everyone else said to get out of the building ASAP.

I'm in central New Jersey. I was at my computer desk and the shaking started just as I happened to stand up.  I thought that perhaps I got up to fast and I was just feeling dizzy so I sat back down but when I saw the window blinds shaking I knew it was an earthquake.  I was in LA for a quake about 20 years ago and I distinctly remember the blinds slapping against the window.

About 90 minutes later I got some sort of an automated message on my answering machine from the local police department advising that there had been an earthquake.  I guess thats my tax dollars at work.  ???

My son in Allentown PA said it shook things pretty good. I'm a few miles north (but on the other side of the mountain), and felt nothing.

Larry

Go here and tell the USGS about it.
Maps, feedback and more.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/events/se/082311a/us/index.html (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/events/se/082311a/us/index.html)

Had just stepped into the elevator in my building 2-blocks from the Capitol when the car shook violently and chunks of broken plaster or cement started to rain down on top of us from somewhere up above. Noticed a lot of cracked plaster in the corridors, and a spire has fallen off of the National Cathedral. 

73, Jim
WA2AJM/3

Wow, you're only about 10 miles from my place, Mike.  Must be something about the bedrock.... family reports no damage at home.  That sucks.

What craziness! Who would have thought an earthquake in either area? Hope plates were the only things injured.

I was standing in the living room, sandwich in hand wondering why the entertainment center was rockin' and thinking if someone on tv or radio does'nt confirm there's been an earthquake, I'm gonna seek out the nearest rubber room.....By the way Frank - That smoke will last a lot longer if ya don't light it......I'm right up the street from you today at the Golden Ring MSP Barrack - Jim

Jim,
      you will be almost within walking distance of my home. But......................
I'm at work in South Baltimore, about 1/2 mile from the stadium.  ;D  ;D

Frank - We need to get together for an eyeball soon!

Werkz for me

I'm back here tomorrow for a 12 hr shift (8 to 8) - Still not back on the air due to the recent lightning strike that blew a hole thru my expensive LMR-400 coax and found its way to ground thru a cold water pipe behind the washing machine (which is also toast) The total casualty list includes Cell Phone, Electric Range, Maytag Washer, and 65 feet of coax with balun. I wudda preferred it just cooked the $15 coffee pot, but no such luck! Anyway, I'll keep pestering ya and we'll figger something out.

Damn................. I just threw about 100' of LDF4-50 away about 3 weeks ago! !



(See, Gary,I can throw things out! ! )  ;D

Wonder if fracking could have anything to do with it.

Most likely not.

The earth crust here in Northern North America is still rebound from the compressions during the ice age a few years back. Most geologist/seismologists I heard last night attribute this episode to just that.

or fricking

Interesting to track the damage and reports. We're maybe 2-3 hours south of the epicenter as the crow flies, and it shook quite hard for a few seconds around 1:53 but no damage anywhere in the area. DC looks to be within an hour of it, with a fair amount of visible damage. 

Even from Johnny's place to Mike's, ten miles or so. Clearly the bedrock formations to the north transmitted it further. Apparently the differences in bedrock from right to left coasts is quite substantial, which accounts for much of the differences in frequency and damage. Ya learn something new everyday.

We had a small one here within the last year, more of a thump or bang than shaking. It  Was in a couple up north that were at least so pronounced as this one.

Washington Monument.

You'll see a version of this photo around.

It was a 5.8 centered on Mineral, VA. That's about 30 miles East of Charlottesville, VA, 36 miles Northwest of downtown Richmond, about 80 miles Southwest of Washington, DC, and about 74 miles Northwest of my QTH.

It was a pretty good shake. The hanging lights/chandaliers were swinging several feet, stuff moved around on the table and the house rattled and banged. It lasted 20-30 seconds. It took me about 5 seconds, maybe more to finally realize it was an earth quake. No damage though, at least none I’ve noticed so far.

Now the hurricane is on the way! Good times.

yup I'll be testing the 180 wind straps and 60 lag bolts between the wall plates and roof rafters
in a couple days. I might stay down there just to see the waves.
Mike
Northridge was quite the shaker. I remember going back in '96 and noticed the bridges rearranged over the 405 heading up to the S.F. valley. When I lived out there I would never stop under them in afternoon traffic. There was 1 spot stacked 4 lanes above the 405 that would be an ugly place to enjoy a shaker. It fell down. Also noticed a spot where the freeway heaved up a few feet.

Gives me a really good excuse to park my a$$ in front of the TV and play "couch potato" for 2 days! ! ! !   ;)  ;D

Asteroid at 11 !

I just found out that a niece of mine is gay, she said the earthquake scared her straight ;D ;D ;D

I heard a news report saying that cell phones in parts of the DC and NYC areas were inoperative for a while due to systems getting overloaded. Text messages seemed more reliable but one had to resend them several times.

True story? Did any of you experience this?

I'm in Central NJ. Cell phone service was unavailable for me for the 30-60 minutes that I tried after the quake. Text seemed to be OK. Landline was fine as well.

No one was injured in this thing and there was no catastrophic damage AFAIK.   So this was just millions of people that just had to pick up their cell phone, call all of their friends with important transactions like "OMG! did you feel that!"....  "OMG! I felt it!"....  "OMG I'm going to call the rest of my friends now!".... "OMG, it was great to talk to you, lets have sushi soon!"... "OMG, great idea, bye!"

This gives you an idea of what to expect from the cell phone networks in a real disaster .... nothing.

Yep, had it here for 10 or 15 minutes. I didnt try text, real men dont text! !   ;D


Sushi, Hmmmmm....................... that sounds pretty good, sounds like lunch tomorrow  ;D

Here's what is headed our way.

Winds in the 85-110 MPH forecast for my QTH.


http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_2043.html

Round and round she goes - where it stops, no one knows.

It was almost comical this morning as I listened to the national news saying they were projecting landfall in SE CT. That's here. It was like a gag where someone would next say the eye was projected to go over JJ's bedroom.

However, they did show a "before" picture of the actual hurricane target as of this evening:

  Hurricane Target  (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=90+windham+rd+glastonbury+ct&aq=&sll=41.845716,-72.640336&sspn=0.027302,0.055747&vpsrc=6&gl=us&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=90+Windham+Rd,+Glastonbury,+Hartford,+Connecticut+06033&ll=41.674816,-72.486909&spn=0.000855,0.001742&t=h&z=20)

T

Got plenty of food in the fridge, plenty of gas for the generator, plenty of staples like coffee and pasta. YL is picking up munchies and stuff today.

Looks like a really good excuse to play "couch potato" for a couple days. Since I am the only one in the hood with a generator big enough to run the whole house, allready talked to a few of the closer neighbors and working up stragety for a "hurricane party"  ;D  ;D

You're all set, Frank !

Same here. Genset is full and proofed, got the boat tank filled (storage for genset), and headed to the grocery store for some provisions before they strip the shelves this afternoon.

Yea, we're good to go.

The YL looked at me last night after watching the local news and sez to me:

Oh, Oh, I need to get some flashlight batteries.  ???  ???  I looked at her like she was crazy and told her: We have 3 generators, all of our flashlights are rechargeable and nothing in this house uses flashlight batteries. What in the hell do we need them for? ? She sez that the news said we should stock up on them in for the upcoming emergency. I hollered at her to stop watching the news before I cut the cable...................  ;D  ;D

Frank I presume your three generators are for:

-- Fridge

-- Radios

-- Well water

Got a portable job here.  Good startup capacity and fairly thrifty one-lung engine with electric start.

Got a dedicated throttle/governor adjusting tool and I assigned it a "hamfest special" Triplett combination wattometer and voltmeter.

Yep, it was running a little high when this image taken. Part of it is to compensate for a run of #10-4.

8KW, nice Genny, Paul!!

My big one 5kw water cooled pretty much runs the whole house It's a 1948 "U.S.Power and light" (yes it's older than me  :o  ;D )

The next one is for backup JIC it's 3.5 kw and also a Lincoln portable welder.

The third one is just for the hell of it, it's a little Honda EM400 lunchbox.