At 11:24 am we were rocked by a 3.3 on the Richter Scale earthquake here in North Texas, this wet Saturday, May 16th day.The quake was centered about 4 miles south of Euless, about 9 miles northeast of my location in East Fort Worth and about 18 miles west of Dallas.
There were no reports of injuries or damage. Texans in Irving, Euless, Bedford and Hurst reported feeling the shaking.
At 11:24 this morning I was laying on the floor doing yoga exercises. I felt nothing but my muscles stretching. I have experienced many earthquakes, due to living the majority of my life in the Pacific Northwest. They can be scary. There's no warning like there is with a tornado. An earthquake can be very loud.
Where I lived in Washington, in East Mount Vernon, there was a period of time during the 1990s when we had multiple very minor earthquakes centered about 4 miles east of my location, by what is called Big Lake. These quakes were in the 3.3 zone. Which you would think would not feel like much. Well, if you are a short distance from the epicenter of a 3.3 quake, you definitely feel it. I remember one hitting while I was laying on my waterbed. It about tossed me off the bed. Another time I was watching TV when one hit. First there's a loud bang-like noise, with the windows all sort of popping in unison. One of the quakes cracked my kitchen's ceramic tile floor. I convinced myself it gave the floor character.
The strongest earthquake I ever experienced was a 6.5. I was over 70 miles from the epicenter. Even that far away, the motion was amazing. You could hardly walk. It lasted what seemed like a minute. The tall trees in the park across from where we lived swayed as if some invisible giant was shaking them.
So, that's been my day in Texas. An earthquake. And I forgot to mention. Someone ran into a nearby natural gas meter, knocking it over, nearly causing an explosion, shutting off gas to a lot of people. Hazmat teams arrived, foam sprayed all over. It is supposed to be fixed by tomorrow. In the meantime, I have no hot water.
2 comments:
We lost power when it hit, it was very strange. Had a "thunderclap" that wasn't. I didn't think anything about it until a waitress downtown told me the same thing.
I didn't feel the earthquake we had today but saw it's effects. I had just made breakfast and had walked to the tv to turn it on and I heard this knocking noise on the wall coming from where my desk is. It had started rocking into the wall and my laptop screen was also rocking back and forth like I had bumped into it. It was really strange looking but only lasted a few seconds. I went ahead and finished breakfast and then got on twitter and noticed that a few local people had posted questions wondering if we had just had an earthquake.
This one was slightly bigger than the one we had in October but with the first one it seemed to make more noise and rattle the dishes, things I didn't notice with todays quake.
Oh well, I just hope we don't ever a "big one" as the houses and buildings in north Texas aren't designed to withstand quakes like they are along the west coast.
I've also heard some people make comments wondering if the recent quake activity could have anything do to with all the oil drilling that's been going on around the metroplex the last couple of years. Think that could have anything to do with?
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