An earthquake felt in much of North Georgia Friday night should not have done much more than cause a lot of chatter on social media, a Georgia Tech expert said Saturday.
The epicenter of the earthquake at 10:23 p.m. Friday, reported by the U.S. Geological Survey as 4.1 in magnitude, was in Edgefield, S.C., some 150 miles from metro Atlanta and about 25 miles from Augusta.
“In general, if you’re in metro Atlanta, the likelihood of having any damage would be very small,” said Zhigang Peng, an associate professor of seismology at Georgia Tech. “Structure and buildings here are pretty strong. Unless you are close to the epicenter, I don’t expect there was much damage. But it doesn’t hurt to check.”
Those closer to the epicenter, Peng said, may have sustained “a little structural damage to homes, buildings and foundations.”
However, there were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from the quake. On Saturday, engineers from the South Carolina Department of Transportation were out evaluating bridges. Derrec Becker of the South Carolina Emergency Management Division said that’s standard procedure after a quake.
The quake, centered about 7 miles from Edgefield, was felt as far west as Atlanta and as far north as Hickory, N.C., also about 150 miles away.
In Georgia, officials at Plant Vogtle in Waynesboro, near Augusta, checked for damage at the nuclear plant, which provides power to about 500,000 homes and is one of Georgia Power’s two nuclear facilities.
“The plant is built in a robust manner to withstand seismic activity and shock absorption,” Georgia Power spokesman Brian Green told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It didn’t have any issues. The plant is operating at 100 percent.”
The quake’s far-reaching vibrations caught many people in metro Atlanta — including Tech’s Peng — by surprise. Peng was working on his computer at his Dunwoody home when he felt the tremor.
“The level of shaking was so minor, equivalent to thunder,” he said, “kind of vibrating in response to the wave for about 15 to 20 seconds.”
For Peng, who has experienced and studied quite a few earthquakes in his 15-year career, Friday’s quake — which initially registered 4.4 but was downgraded to 4.1 — doesn’t rank as very memorable.
“A 4.1 quake is not considered a large quake,” he said. Two years ago, Virginia registered a 5.7 magnitude quake and Peng said he experienced a few 7 magnitude quakes when he was studying for his doctorate in Los Angeles.
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