Earthquake!

I hadn’t planned to post today, but as I was reading everyone else’s blogs I just got a hell of a scare.  An earthquake, preliminary estimates of 4.6 magnitude, just hit about five minutes ago as I write this.  The epicenter was only 7 miles from my house.  It was felt as far away as Nova Scotia and New York State.

Those of you in California, or other earthquake prone areas, may be giggling a little bit at how small this is, but for someone who lives in an area that almost never has one, this was a shock.  It’s only the third one I have ever felt in my life, and it’s the strongest, probably because it’s the closest I’ve been to the epicenter.  The last time Maine had a damaging earthquake was 1940.  This is in the range that might start to cause damage.

If you are wondering, I had no damage that I know of.  I’ll need to wait for daylight to look at the outside of my house.  I had no warning.  It was just a literal “boom!” and I thought my new furnace was exploding.  I raced down the stairs and opened my cellar door, but by then the noise was starting to subside.

The weird thing is, it wasn’t really a gradual shaking like I had felt in a lighter earthquake many years ago.  That was a longer rumble that started out as just noise like a truck was driving down my road, then a gentle shaking as the noise peaked, then the noise gradually fading away.  This earthquake was immediate.  There was no noise buildup.  It was an immediate strong shaking that eventually got weaker and stopped.

Anyway, I got my stair work in for tonight, so I guess I’ll go back to catching up on your blogs.