Community Corner

Question: Did You Feel Tremors This Afternoon?

A 5.9 magnitude earthquake has been reported in Virginia, with the entire East Coast feeling rumbles.

Did you just feel that? If you were deep in thought, you may not have. But, several people have already asked what that rumble beneath their feet in Morristown was.

"Can you find out why the whole ground shook all around our location???" emailed Mia Mutascio, office manager at Morristown Jewish Center Beit Yisrael on Speedwell Avenue.

Denise Lanza, with the Morris County Parks service, sent an email with the succinct headline, "Earthquake!"

Find out what's happening in Morristownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"Morristown just had tremors!!!" she wrote.

Indeed, earthquakes are not a common occurance in this part of the world. Nor, are they in Mineral, Virginia, where it has been reported that a 5.9 magnitude earthquake occurred at 1:51 p.m. Reports of tremors from the quake are being reported up the east coast.

Find out what's happening in Morristownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

NJ Transit is not reporting any delays related to the quake. JCP&L has not reported any outages.

According to the Federal Emergency Management Association, New Jersey ranks low on the list of states at risk for experiencing an earthquake.

"Earthquake hazards are measured as the likelihood of experiencing earthquake shaking of various intensities," according to FEMA's website. Northern New Jersey is put in a category that's described as "having a hazard shaking of moderate intensity," which could be felt by all and could lead to slight damage.

Southern New Jersey is put in a category described as having "a small probability of experiencing damaging earth­quake effects."

People were already talking about the earthquake shortly after 2 p.m. at on South Street, as folks checked their smartphones for updates and speculated on just what had happened.

"It was bad here on South Street; my building evacuated in like 10 seconds, everyone went running," reported Denise Addis,

Kristi Dingwell Davis reported, via Morristown Patch's Facebook page, "1776 On the Green in Morristown was evacuated due to shaking," referring to the building next to Headquarters Plaza.

Rob Barra, also via Facebook, said, he was sitting in his office in Parsippany when "the whole building shook, and everyone in all three buildings in the complex were in the parking lot in about 30 seconds."

It seemed not everyone felt it around here, however. Amy Baskin, via Facebook, wrote: "Why is it that we felt nothing and my neighbor across the street said stuff fell off counters????"

Which brings us to our "Question of the Day:" Did you feel that? Where were you when it happened? Was anything affected by the tremors? Chime in below.


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