2003-04-29 10:54:47.848385+00 by meuon 8 comments
Chattanooga experienced an earthquake at 5am this morning, a 4.5 (Richter) centered near Menlo Alabama. Shook me in bed enough to wake me up. Freaky feeling. In the lean and mean news business, the local 1-2 person Web paper Chattanoogan.com was quickly updated with a story, while the big newspaper may still be considering doing a story on the earthquake, two hours later.Web centric journalism rocks!
[ related topics: Current Events Journalism and Media Chattanooga Earthquake ]
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment made: 2003-04-29 11:49:07.684148+00 by: mkelley
John does a great job, while the T-NFP just wants to make a buck off of the subscribers.
Wow, 4.5......in Chattanooga? I knew I felt something, but I didn't wake up.
#Comment made: 2003-04-29 14:38:59.660123+00 by: Diane Reese
Be sure to go to the USGS page for more info, and if you felt it, click the appropriately-named "Did you feel it?" link to report what you felt. We Californians would like to know how you feel. And we probably do. :-)
#Comment made: 2003-04-29 15:35:02.596368+00 by: TC
Earthquake? Hey....thats ours, give it back. Now Dan is going to have to change the Flutterby page footers.
#Comment made: 2003-04-29 16:08:07.485377+00 by: meuon [edit history]
The Virtual Building is intact, and for us, this is highly unusual. - And thanks for the survey link, I am the only response in zip 37408.
#Comment made: 2003-04-29 18:25:23.643042+00 by: Dan Lyke
I remember being told, while drinking heavily at the Sandpiper, by someone who claimed extensive geology knowledge that various faults in that region were all dormant and there was nothing to worry about. I looked a bit askance, but it was only after I moved out here that I realized that "dormant" just meant "storing energy". It's only a matter of time before the New Madrid fault lets go and the Mississippi flows backwards again. Could be 500 years, but it'll happen.
#Comment made: 2003-04-29 22:34:21.231714+00 by: ghasty
Yeah, shook me enough to wake up...windows where open and I just heard rumbling and creeks, then then bed started movin'...and I hadn't even been drinking last night so I knew something was up...thought it was a tornado at first until I looked outsie and turned on the news...
#Comment made: 2003-04-30 05:36:01.479681+00 by: ebradway [edit history]
It was a 4.9 at 35.54 x 85.63 - less than 60 miles from downtown Chatt. The largest earthquake that close in recorded history. I didn't realize it was an earthquake until it stopped. Seemed like rolling thunder (common occurence in 'Nooga - hence the outages at HTS) until it stopped dead. There was an aftershock at 2.4 an hour and a half later.
The New Madrid went in 1811 and 1812, three quakes at 7.9 - and plenty of aftershocks to go along with it. As Dan mentioned, the Mississippi (largest river in North America) flowed backwards and created Reelfoot Lake - the only natural lake in Tennessee (the rest are manmade). The New Madrid faultline pretty much follows the Mississippi along the Tennessee/Arkansas/Missouri border. According to American Indian legend, it ran a steady 100 year cycle until the past 100 years (regular seismography started around 1811). We are past due for a 6+ or 7+ quake.
(I editted this after further research):
"In 1983, the states of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee formed the Central United States Earthquake Consortium (CUSEC)."
"Most CUSEC states have adopted building codes containing modern earthquake design standards"
#Comment made: 2003-04-30 05:41:12.909382+00 by: ebradway
Ooohhh... Here we go! A 3.7M earthquake near Blytheville, AR (on the New Madrid fault). All hell may be about to break loose...