5.9 magnitude quake a motherfucker!

in print it looks like this:

5.9 magnitude quake rocks East Coast: A 5.9 magnitude quake center in Virginia rocks the East Coast, with tremors felt as far south as North Carolina, as far north as Buffalo and Boston, and as far west as Detroit.

Update at 2:30 p.m. ET: The Washington Post quotes a a USGS official as saying, "We would certainly expect aftershocks."

Update at 2:29 p.m. ET: The USGS suggests that the quake is the largest to originate in Virginia since May 31, 1897.

we were sitting at work, i was typing some typical bullshit when the floor started shaking. we have warehouse operations upstairs and outside the room where i sit, so my first reaction is they're moving something upstairs.

but as the shaking got stronger and the walls appeared to be moving, i realized it was a quake -- and not a weak one, either. it kept up for about 10 seconds before subsiding, by which time i was headed outside.

i realized at that point that by the time you knew something was up, if it was really serious you'd probably be dead already. so i knew it wasn't going to be deadly or anything.

on the other hand, the epicenter is about 10 miles from here, so we caught the brunt of it -- those down the road in richmond, not so much. the USGS originally estimated a 5.8 magnitude, but that was later revised to 5.9 -- close enough. i knew it was a lot worse than the ticklers we've had around here in the past.

still can't get a phone call completed down to the home front, but at least at this point it's clear that there isn't widespread destruction or anything. still, this is the worst tremblor to hit virginia since 1897! i'm not a pessimist but you can't say that the big one probably won't hit around here eventually -- fault or no fault!