ST. LOUIS EARTHQUAKE just now????

Question

I agree, it definitely lasted a number of minutes, not seconds.... I'm still "shook up"... no pun intended, lol... where's Elvis when we need him, hehehehe... sorry couldn't resist...

My bird is still freaking out... I found her hiding on a shelf, shaking a while later... she was so scared she actually let me hold her and pet her and nuzzle her!! (crazy Parrot who normally has a "bird-a-tude".... She hasn't spoken a word yet... Oh well, back to life I guess.... Glad you all are safe!!!

Answer 1

It woke me from my sleep here in St. Louis City (dogtown), I'm on the top floor of an old house and it was like someone was shaking the whole bed, although it is a metal platform bed, so not usually unstable at all!  

The quake was centered in southern illinois, 118 miles east of here close to a small town called Olney, a magnitude 5.4

Go to the USGS earthquakes site and you can enter your zip code and description, they collect data on how far away it was felt, etc.

Answer 2

I am around Bowling Green Ky and I felt the quake too, it lasted quite a while. I have felt them before but not like this one.

Answer 3

We felt the aftershock here at work (well, two of us did).  I looked it up and it said it was a 4.6!

Answer 4

POPE Benedict prevented it from being much worse! His presence calmed things!

Answer 5

Preliminary magnitude of 5.4 centered 19 miles south of Olney IL.  I live in Carbondale and it woke me from a dead sleep.  Little damage though, and honestly it's no big deal.  Any aftershocks will likely be small, so safe to crash out again.

Answer 6

Yes!  I'm so glad to see on the news and here that other people felt it too!  I woke up my husband and he said 'look at the glass of water on the nightstand' then rolled back over.  But the rumbling and creaking was definitely not a plane overhead.

Answer 7

I just felt what i think was an earthquake at 4:30 am here near Peoria, IL.

Answer 8

I live exactly where you do, and I slept right through it! I was kind of upset I missed it, but I felt the aftershock (apparently there were 7, although we only felt the one at 10) and we had to get under our desks at school. It's hard to imagine that the earth beneath us is moving, and that it can happen at any time!

:)

Answer 9

I live in Springfield, Missouri and felt the earthquake too.  I just thought it was a loud rumbling truck outside, but it was an earthquake....  we've had every type of natural disaster available to the area this year!

Answer 10

I live in Henerson,Ky.They say on the news that we will have after shocks for the rest of the day some we may not feel at all but they said we could aftershocks for days mabey even a week.SCARY!!! this was mky second one.This one seemed like it lasted forever it took me a while to figure out what it was.lol my first one was no big deal this one scraed the c**p out of me and I argee it did kind of feel like the world was ending.I asked this same question.There was a guy that was saying in about 30 years or so we could have the big one we have all been hearing about.SCARY STUFF!! glad everyones ok!!

Answer 11

I jumped out of bed when I felt it rattling. My first thought was that someone was trying to get into the house. I could hear the windows shaking. I jumped out of bed and looked outside. Everything seemed perfectly normal. The best I could think of--in my half asleep state--was that it was huge wind. It woke up my wife and daughter as well. My two year old was calling us, so I went in to check on her. She thought she'd heard some thunder and was scared. "No, it's just the wind I told her." But then, going back to bed, I realized there hadn't been any signs of wind. When I had looked outside, everything was perfectly still. Then it hit me: St. Louis is close to a fault line and I definitely felt the bed shaking and heard the windows rattling. "We just had an earthquake!", I told my wife.  

CNN has a piece here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/04/18/ill...

At the center it was a 5.4 magnitude! Happened @ 4:36AM. Centered 127 miles from here in Illinois. 3 miles below the surface. No immediate damage reported.

Can you imagine? We felt THAT when it was 3m below the surface and 127 miles east of us?!

Answer 12

Please fill out the reports for the U.S.G.S. about what you felt; the page for this event is http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/STORE/...

Their main page is http://earthquake.usgs.gov/

It's very straightforward stuff, and it's a big help to allow them to gather data.

Answer 13

The one we just had is supposed to have an epicenter outside Olney. I'm in Effingham, which is north of Olney and about 100 miles east of St. Louis. This must have covered a huge area. On a question  I just came from, Illinoisans dropped by, and one Kentucky member did, too. WOW!

Here's where the other question is:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Please note that one poster has a link to a questionnaire you can fill out for earthquakes in your area. I just did. They have the Olney quake at 4:36 a.m. (I think), but I could swear it was shaking around 4:30 a.m. here and kept it up for nearly five minutes, enough time for me to get up and walk through several rooms. I was trying to figure out what was happening and wondering if it was an explosion, a plane crash at the county airport near us, or even a train derailment since we're near several tracks. Then, it dawned on me what it actually was!

More than an hour later, my heart finally is settling down to a normal beat. I didn't think I was that frightened. Maybe it's a physiological response to an earthquake.

We're in the New Madrid Fault zone, so this was an unnerving experience! From the sound of it, it's not my imagination that this one lasted a long time. The questionnaire said "seconds", but I typed in that it was several minutes~very long minutes!

Answer 14

Ha...didnt' feel the one last night...slept right threw it. People called me this morning and told me...I thought they were kidding. Apparently they weren't. Really feel bad for anyone relying on me to keep them safe ha ha!!! Just felt an aftershock all the way down in Southern Illinois about 25 minutes ago. Office started shaking...really scary (and I'm from Cali ha you'd think this was second nature!) Hope they are all over....there is no way to tell is there....err!!!!!

Answer 15

Yeah, we felt it in Louisville at 5:37am eastern time.

Answer 16

Yeah, I woke up and jumped out of bed (I'm 14). I was like "What is that?! EARTHQUAKE!" then I ran, got my parents and ran outside. That's what you're supposed to do, right? That was so scary...

Answer 17

This quake hit National news. It was plastered all over the TV news here in Calif. as well as the Internet. Too bad I missed it but a couple of months ago we had a 5.5 quake ourselves. This quake location borders the much more seismically active New Madrid seismic zone known as the Ozark Dome Region. I believe the USGS officially is calling it a 5.2 which for Calif. standards is your basic moderate quake. The quake was fairly shallow around 7 miles deep which will give a good jolt anywhere near the epicenter because it is shallow. Ironically, at 5:12AM Calif. time/3:12AM Illinois time this morning people in San Francisco were commemorating the 102 year old San Francisco quake which destroyed most of the city. I was watching it on the news. We get 5.2 quakes fairly often. I've been in 2 quakes measuring 7.0 or greater and many quakes in the 5.0-6.0 zone. Some can be very scary depending on your location and magnitude. I hope for your case, this is not a precursor to a much larger quake because if that were to happen that would freak anyone out when they get stronger and stronger. The USGS just announced last week that there is a 97.7% probability of a quake 6.7 or larger within the next 30 years right in my area. That sounds freaky!

Answer 18

Yeah i woke up about 10 minutes before it happened, My first thought someone was in my room shaking my bed. but no one was there!  Nothing that i know of broke, the house did creak(i was located in the basement). But i was the only one who felt it the rest of the house slept through it, except my dogs. It being my first earthquake i was quite confused. And honestly wish it would happen again. I quite enjoyed it. I dont know why you or any one else was scared... but eh thats just me.

Answer 19

Yeah! I was in my bed and metal kept hitting each other, my first to. I felt it but none of my family :) It was cool though! My bed was shaky! lol

Answer 20

Yes, I just felt it...

I thought i was hallucinating. I guess your about my age, cause i was pretty freaked too. I got up and everything was rattling, but nothing deadly. the first, the word earthquake never crossed my mind, i casually got up, took stuff off my dresser that was rattling,   straightener, brush, stuff like that, i had my whole dresser cleared off, still half asleep before i realized it was the dresser itself. I lied back down, the shaking seem to have stopped, but then started again, me being myself thought it was the wind, until my friend texted me at 4:40, "Did    

you just feel that earthquake?" Then it got me thinking... What if i would've been worse?

Anyway... It just makes you realize things CAN happen to you that you don't consider. Don't worry about earthquakes, say your prayers at night, tell your loved ones how much you love them, never have any regrets, and you'll be fine.

Edit: 41? Its okay! Earthquakes are scary, no matter how old you are.

Answer 21

Here in St. Louis my whole apartment building shook. I should have known something was up because all the birds were going crazy.

Answer 22

I felt it here in michigan, i thought it was weird. it lasted for about 10 secs here. they said something about it on the news here.

Answer 23

I live in southern illinois and yes I felt it, I agree it lasted an usually long time which is probably why we noticed it more. i cant sleep now! why cant this stuff happen in the middle of the day when im at work so i have something to get me out of it!

Answer 24

i just felt an after shock here in Louisville, but nobody else in my office felt it.

Answer 25

I'm in University City and I felt it around 4:33am. I'm a heavy sleeper so I can't be sure I didn't just fall back asleep, but I thought it had stopped for a few minutes and then started again around 4:37am. It felt fairly gentle around me. I heard what sounded like wind howling outside my window as well.

This article explains it all: 5.2 hit in southern Illinois.

Answer 26

I'm in Creve Coeur, It woke me from my sleep. Surprisingly no aftershocks yet. It didn't feel that bad from from my apartment. But I was waiting for all my PC equipment to come crashing down. I just moved out here not long ago. I guess my decision to leave here won't be a hard one should it ever come to that lol.

Answer 27

well im 15 but i slept through it. my sister got really scared though. thismoring she came in and was like OMG DID YOU FEEL THE EARTHQUAKE LAST NIGHT? but i didnt even notice. now tht i think of it i thinkmy sister was exited.

ive always wanted to feel an earthquake though... i just wanna see what on feels like...

Answer 28

i think i felt an after shock around 11:15

no one else in the house says they felt it

but my bed was shaking and so was the floor i think

i was too scared to get up and check haha,

anyone else feel it or was it my imagination

Answer 29

I am down here at Scott AFB IL, wife and I were already up getting ready for work, and the house shook, At first I thought it was the the train but when the couch was shaking I figured it was a E.Q, I live is base housing so I am sure others felt it.