Paul's Comments

I sometimes feel the ground vibrate on occasion and at about 5 minutes to 2pm Eastern time I felt a small shake. I sometimes feel these when something shakes the ground like a rail train arrival vibrating the station platform. In my wheelchair I can feel this sort of vibration but I'm generally so stable I don't move. So I didn't think much of it.

Then a really big one hit as the whole house moved from side to side.

Being a 15-year resident of California I recognized it immediately as an earthquake, which basically almost never happens here in Maryland, this is the first one I've noticed and only the second quake that was strong enough to feel in the entire 23 years I've been here (I was asleep during the previous one that happened here, about a year or so ago). Reportedly the last quake this strong to hit the area was back in 1897.

My cell phone won't work, I can't get a call through; it's conceivable cell towers were damaged.

Since it was strong enough for me to feel it I estimated it was probably 5-6 on the Richter scale. I saw a report on the news saying an earthquake of 5.8 occurred about 100 miles away in Virginia. News reports it was 5.9 and located 3 miles underground below Mineral, Virginia, and was felt as far south as Chapel Hill, NC. Cell networks are jammed.

I believe there was no damage here. Nothing I noticed fell down or broke.

Now, the incident reminds me of the worst earthquake in the United States because nobody expected it as it wasn't in a typical earthquake area. No, it wasn't in California or anywhere out west. It was about 150 years ago, in New Madrid, Missouri. It was so strong it caused the Missouri river to run backward.