A little before 2pm I was sitting at my desk working when all of sudden my chair started going up and down. I look around to see if someone was rolling something “really heavy” down the hall. When it continued for longer than twenty seconds I jumped out of my chair and went out in the hall as did everyone in the offices around me.
The tremble kept up about another minute or so though it was not as strong as it was at first. Since earthquakes are very rare on the east coast we all thought something in the building either was about to blow up or had blown up and wondered if we should be evacuating the building. I quickly put 2 and 2 together and got earthquake tremor in my brain when it was apparent it was not due to the above mentioned problems.
About ten minutes later we started hearing via Facebook, e-mail, and online news that a 5.9 magnitude quake had hit in Virginia. It was felt from Connecticut to North Carolina. Now, you guys who live or have lived in California don’t need to laugh. That’s a major earthquake for the east coast. Plus, when folks felt those tremors I am sure many thought bomb or airplane strike i.e. terrorist attack rather than earthquake. Plus, we don’t build structures to withstand earthquakes on the east coast so who knows if the building they were in was damaged structurally.
We all relaxed once we learned what had happened knowing the tremors were not severe enough for any damage to us and went back to work. It was a very unnerving experience even though I have felt them before but it has been a long time.