Earthquake

[Mike O'Dell]

i was in my office on the 8th floor in Chevy Chase, located on Western, 
the boundary
between DC and MD at that point.

it was quite lengthy. it started with a bit of vibration like we get 
regularly
from construction refit in the building, but then it started building in 
strength
and seemed to have a large transverse component. after it died down, there
were low-level vibrations for a minute or two after the full minute of the
main shake.

we evacuated the building and after it became clear they weren't going to
let us back in the building any time soon, i went down the stairs into
the underground parking garage and took off for home before the
traffic completely congealed. I had very little traffic out River Road
and it was light on the outer loop around to the Troll Road except for 
the usual
last half mile. The Troll Road was very light at the time (circa 3pm), but
when i checked WTOP just as I rolled into the driveway, the traffic had
transitioned to full-tilt madness.

our son was here at home by himself and it gave him a really good scare.
a few things like desk pictures leapt off shelves and broke glass on the 
floor,
but so far, that's the limit of damage.

indeed we were very lucky. when I lived in the Bay Area, i stopped counting
the 4 and 5 magnitude events that i slept through or otherwise completely
failed to notice. this one, though, was a much as I care to ever experience.

of course, this weekend we're likely to get a significant blow from Irene,
so unless it gets a lot more obvious it's gonna be a clean miss by tomorrow,
the boat is currently out on the hard getting a bottom job, and while they
wanted to launch later this week, we'll be leaving her on the concrete
until Irene says "goodnight".

     -mo





On 8/23/11 5:50 PM, KG4UPR - Bryan Stephens wrote:
> My office is fourth floor of eight in Tyson's Corner (20km SW of Wash 
> DC). It is on a rocky hill, so we got a good thrashing. Long event, 
> maybe 40 seconds. The first 30 seconds were pretty typical of 
> magnitude 5+ quakes I've experienced, but there was violent horizontal 
> deflection near the end (peak). Many structures can't take much 
> movement of that kind. There's a wide floor to ceiling crack in the 
> parking garage wall, broken ceiling tiles, open file cabinets, etc. 
> The quake was apparently just under the level to cause serious damage, 
> but many structures throughout the region will need careful 
> inspection. I think we were very, very lucky it wasn't any stronger.
>
> 73
> Bryan
> KG4UPR
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From: *"Brian Hawes" <brian.hawes at retired.ox.ac.uk>
> *To: *"Tacos" <tacos at amrad.org>
> *Sent: *Tuesday, August 23, 2011 5:10:47 PM
> *Subject: *Earthquake
>
> Hi,
>
> Just heard on the BBC 10 p.m. news that there has been an earthquake 
> on the East Coast of USA.
> They said offices in D.C. were evacuated, and that it was felt as far 
> as Boston.
>
> Everybody O.K. ?
>
> Brian
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>
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