“Biggest event in east since seismometers,” tweeted a College of William & Mary geologist, Chuck Bailey. He had been in a meeting with other geologists when the quake hit. They all looked at one another and realized immediately what was going on.
“It was sort of a once-in-a-lifetime earthquake. A once-in-a-century earthquake,” Bailey said.
Washington-area residents and workers crowded the streets near the White House on Tuesday following a 5.8-magnitude earthquake in Virginia. (Aug. 23)
YOUR EARTHQUAKE PHOTOS
Geologists — including USGS scientists who evacuated to the parking lot outside their Reston headquarters — warned that aftershocks may strike for several days. Three small aftershocks were reported by Tuesday evening.
“Aftershocks could go on for days, weeks or even months,” said Mike Blanpied, associate coordinator of the USGS’s earthquake hazards program.
He said it is unlikely that the 5.8-magnitude quake was a foreshock of a stronger tremor because it was near the limit of what has been experienced in this region of Virginia. The last Virginia quake of this intensity was in 1897, a tremor felt as far south as Georgia and as far west as Indiana.
“In terms of energy release, a fairly run-of-the-mill earthquake,” USGS Director Marcia McNutt wrote in an e-mail, “but because the rocks along the East coast do such a superior job of transmitting seismic energy without dissipating it, the tremor was widely felt. “
McNutt — who watched her rock hammer leap from a shelf in her Reston office — offered advice on what to do the next time the ground shakes: “Duck, get under something sturdy like a desk or a doorway, get away from falling glass. Make sure that you are not in the way of falling objects like pictures, bookshelves, books, anything that’s not firmly connected the wall.”
Californians scoffed at Washington jitters. Relaxing on the fence wall in front of the White House, Monda Tajbakhsh, 54, and her friend, just off the red-eye from San Francisco, were amused by the capital’s reaction to “a tiny 5-point something!” Tajbakhsh said. “I found it really amusing. Wolf Whatever-his-name-is was on the television!”
A group of Montgomery College students did not evacuate from the financial aid office, spokeswoman Beth Homan said. Financial aid is key before classes start next week, and they didn’t want to lose their places in line.
The sun hadn’t even gone down on this unusual Washington day before someone had found a commercial angle. A General Motors dealership on Route 355 in Rockville began advertising “aftershock price reductions!”
The following reporters and researchers contributed to coverage of the earthquake: Lauren Abdel-Razzaq, Joel Achenbach, Keith L. Alexander, Isaac Arnsdorf, Melissa Bell, Victoria Benning, Bonnie Benwick, Mark Berman, Laura Blumenfeld, Michelle Boorstein, Emma Brown, Jennifer Buske, Michael Alison Chandler, Christian Davenport, Marcia Davis, Mike DeBonis, Daniel de Vise, Karen DeYoung, Dan Eggen, Juliet Eilperin, Maggie Fazeli Fard, Mary Pat Flaherty, Elizabeth Flock, Amy Gardner, Caitlin Gibson, Ashley Halsey III, Fritz Hahn, Hamil Harris, Dana Hedgpeth, Rosalind S. Helderman, Steve Hendrix, Spencer Hsu, Jennifer Jenkins, Jenna Johnson, Paul Kane, John Kelly, Cecilia Kang, Anita Kumar, Fredrick Kunkle, Theola Labbé-DeBose, Michael Laris, Madonna Lebling, Carol D. Leonnig, Peter Marks, Ned Martel, Greg Miller, Carol A. Morello, Dan Morse, Steven Mufson, David Nakamura, Ed O’Keefe, Steven Overly, Michael E. Ruane, Jason Samenow, Robert Samuels, Matt Schudel, Lucy Shackelford, Ian Shapira, T. Rees Shapiro, Annys Shin, Delece Smith-Barrow, Jillian Sowah, Katherine Shaver, Jillian S. Sowah, Miranda S. Spivack, Nikita Stewart, Valerie Strauss, Lena Sun, Susan Svrluga, Patricia Sullivan, Paul Tenorio, Avis Thomas-Lester, Cheryl Thompson, Robert Thomson, Bill Turque, Theresa Vargas, John Wagner, Martin Weil, Gene Weingarten, Josh White, Ovetta Wiggins, Del Quentin Wilber, Clarence F. Williams, June Q. Wu, Victor Zapana and Matt Zapotosky.
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