Metro Atlanta is more than 500 miles away from the 5.9 magnitude earthquake that shook north-central Virginia early Tuesday afternoon.
But folks here – and all along the East Coast – could still feel the effects of the massive quake.
“I thought I was getting dizzy,” said Beth Nelson, of Cumming, who was on her couch working on her computer when she felt the tremors. “But then I heard the slight clicking the TV makes when it rocks and realized it wasn't just me.”
In Athens, it reverberated through the UGA student body.
“Everyone on campus felt it,” student Jon Goodfriend said.
While in areas near the epicenter, some 40 miles northwest of Richmond, buildings were damaged and people were hurt, Georgians only experienced small, but noticeable effects.
Appliances rattling. Drinks swirling on their own. Buildings seeming to sway. Dishes rattling, unaided.
“It was kind of like a giant train going by,” said Mark Anthony, who lives in Sugar Hill. “But it was different at the same time because of the feeling of swaying involved.”
The quake comes closer than any other in recent history to the highest magnitude recorded east of the Mississippi River, a 7.3 that killed 60 people in Charleston, S.C., in 1886.
“It was so large, we were able to feel it here,” Julian Gray, curator and resident geologist at Tellus Science Museum in Cartersville, Ga., told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Federal officials evacuated parts of the White House and Pentagon in Washington and triggered the seismometer at Tellus within minutes.
“Something this close and this big, it was pretty easy for us to pick up,” Gray said.
The quake began at about 1:51 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, and 3.7 miles below the Earth’s surface, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Zhigang Peng, associate professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Science, called the earthquake an intra-plate event – it took place on one tectonic plate as opposed to several sliding together.
“This type of earthquake doesn’t occur quite often,” Peng said.
The USGS recorded two subsequent aftershocks within hours of the first event, just miles away.
People reported feeling tremors from the quake in more than a dozen states, including Georgia, and as far north as Toronto, Canada, Peng said.
“First, I noticed waves on the surface of the coffee in my cup,” David Corts said, describing his experience from his Dunwoody office. “Then I felt my chair rocking gently, but rhythmically."
Gray said a magnitude 5 quake can be felt for up to 300 miles away. So why did this one reach so many people?
“Rocks are much stronger on the East Coast than on the West Coast because there aren’t as many earthquakes,” Peng said. “The rocks are more solid, so the seismic waves can travel much further.”
While emergency crews in the Beltway area scoured that metroplex for injuries, the shaking was of little consequence in metro Atlanta.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport was unfazed and area police reported no emergency calls.
For many in the Peach State, like Georgia State University student Jasmine Rogers, the shaking they felt will ultimately prove forgettable.
“It was a weird feeling,” Rogers said in an email. “I just brushed it off and started to study.”
-- Christopher Seward, Fran Jeffries and David Ibata contributed to this article.
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