Todd Biske: Outside the Box

At about 4:35 AM Central Daylight Time this morning, I was woken up to my house getting a pretty good shake for about 10-15 seconds. While this may not be news for a good portion of my readers who probably reside in the San Francisco Bay Area, it’s certainly news when you live hear in the midwest. Admittedly, we do have the New Madrid Fault, which did have a major quake over a century ago, but tremor are a very rare occurrence, in contrast to the west coast. I lived out there for four summers and then three full years and felt about three of them. I’ve been here in the St. Louis area now for over ten years and this is the first one. Anyway, it was different than a Bay Area quake. Of the three I felt out there, one was more of a rolling motion, but that was probably attributable to me being on the seventh story of a building. It gave me the weird sensation like dizziness, but without the normal internal sensation you’d normally have in your head. The other two, where I was closer to the epicenter, felt like someone slamming a door really hard. A quick jolt and it was done. This one was a good shake, similar to when I lived near Chicago and we had train tracks on the other side of the street, but a much stronger shake. Of course, probably the most unusual thing of it all was that I was the only person in my house who woke up. I’m normally the one who can sleep through anything. Oh well.

Update:It’s been confirmed. It was a 5.4 magnitude quake centered near West Salem, Illinois, about 130 miles from St. Louis. That was stronger than any one that I experienced in the bay area.

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