DCist: Small Earthquake Felt in D.C. and Northern Virginia

RJ

Wed, 07 May 2008 15:25:22 -0500

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is building a huge 2.4 million Sqft complex at a reasonable cost of 1.4Billion at the EPG. (PS the clay there is a bitch). Ohh and this Californian is indeed laughing.

erincarly

Wed, 07 May 2008 14:48:07 -0500

@monkeyrotica: but that would make him jewish, and i doubt the GOP would be happy about that.

iAManugget

Wed, 07 May 2008 14:07:46 -0500

i thought i heard kirstie alley was in town, this definitely confirms it.

dsade

Tue, 06 May 2008 19:25:52 -0500

well i was on 18th st. and didnt feel anything

monkeyrotica

Tue, 06 May 2008 19:07:15 -0500

Does this mean Jesus is coming soon? No, but his older and much-less-forgiving brother is, and he's locked in the GOP ticket.

cactus jack

Tue, 06 May 2008 17:31:29 -0500

She who felt it dealt it.

firebird26

Tue, 06 May 2008 17:25:43 -0500

Did you survive the Great Northern Virginia Seismic Hiccup of 2008? Get your commemorative shirts, steins, and thongs here! Hurry, before a bigger one steals your thunder!

IMGoph

Tue, 06 May 2008 17:04:41 -0500

i was sitting outside of NGS having lunch, didn't feel a thing....of course, there is a lot of construction across the street at the jefferson, so i would have chalked shaking up to the neverending demolition over there.

300_sq_ft

Tue, 06 May 2008 17:00:07 -0500

Does this mean Jesus is coming soon? Where has he been anyway?

sarainc

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:56:58 -0500

hhmm... I was walking dogs at 1:30 around american university. I didn't feel a thing.

OldPosterKnownAsCranky

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:53:43 -0500

I felt nothing at Union Station. Oddly, this sounds like the Larry Craig defense.

TLB

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:52:07 -0500

So is it a good idea to do subterranean blasting near whatever fault was the origin of the mini-quake? I DON'T UNDERSTAND PLATE TECTONICS! or whatever

drew in adams morgan

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:47:15 -0500

"Be prepared to laugh your ass off at DC's most HI-Larious blog" I think DCist is hilarious enough for me, thank you.

hillrat

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:40:52 -0500

For real, no ne cares about the Whitman, most of use have our own condo woes to deal with. Indeed, I can barely muster any enthusiasm for the petty squabbles and nonsense in my own building; how could I possibly care about the Whitman?

voteprime

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:38:56 -0500

I hate working all the way out in Bethesda. I miss all the good stuff: the burrito guy, a short commute and now earthquakes! Wait, 1:30pm? That's during my post-lunch nap. No one disturbs voteprime during his post-lunch nap, not even Mother Nature!

Big L

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:30:10 -0500

For real, no ne cares about the Whitman, most of use have our own condo woes to deal with.

Bethesdaist

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:23:49 -0500

Fanny, why are all of your posts spam trying to direct traffic to the Whitman condo blog?

miss bee

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:17:57 -0500

nothing over here in the NE quadrant. i am beginning to think that NE stands for "non-existent"

IMGoph

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:08:03 -0500

i know we're not supposed to feed the trolls, but can someone find the source of this whitman spam and put an end to it?

MikeB

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:04:53 -0500

people in California are laughing at us right now. Damn straight. I didn't feel a thing. But as a native Californian, it usually takes at least something in the 4.5-5.0 range to get my attention.

Fanny

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:56:23 -0500

omg. Check out this link in particular! lol. Poor Deborah Jeane Palfrey! http://thewhitmandc.blogspot.com/2008/05/peace-out-deborah-jean-palfrey.html

songfta

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:54:45 -0500

Yup - felt it. My office is underground, so it was not difficult to mistake (having grown up in an active fault zone, you can tell what an earthquake is like, even the small ones).

hungeegirl

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:52:03 -0500

did someone say moleman? i was saying boo-urns.

TimmyTucker

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:49:11 -0500

It's those damn Fraggles again!

yonas

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:48:22 -0500

Rumble at 1:30pm today? I thought that was my intestinal system after the greasy club sandwich that I ate.

monkeyrotica

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:47:43 -0500

Screw the molemen. My money's on the Ft. Belvoir troops battling either the Hollow Earth creatures or the VRIL with underground nukes. Same thing happened at Mount Shasta. Don't be surprised if you hear on the news tonight that an offshore deepsea oil rig has struck a tunnel full of flames and screaming and the oceans suddenly start draining.

IMGoph

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:46:19 -0500

they're moving the nga folk from the navy yard down to ft. belvoir, right? and not a moment too soon. those guys are the scourge of the cartography world. what, with their geonames database that i refer to for every damn mapping project....oh wait, guess that means they're not a scourge. they're indispensable. please don't go underground, nga, and never come back. we'll miss you.

Fanny

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:44:25 -0500

It's back ya'll! I can't believe it. Be prepared to laugh your ass off at DC's most HI-Larious blog, The Whitman DC Condo Blog. You MUST check this out. lol. www.thewhitmandc.blogspot.com

Andrew Wiseman

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:42:24 -0500

A robot soldier told me they weren't doing anything there.

registeringsucks

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:40:43 -0500

Am I the only one wondering why there are scheduled "subterranean blasts" at Ft. Belvoir? What the hell are they doing down there?

fozzie33

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:39:03 -0500

http://www.heliocentric.com.au/pics/molemen.jpg MOLEMEN

demonfafa

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:36:00 -0500

people in California are laughing at us right now.

monkeyrotica

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:30:30 -0500

National Geospatial Agency works with the Defense Mapping Agency and the National Security Agency to monitor and track your every bowel movement. While we're on the subject of the NGA, did anyone hear a muffled explosion coming from the handicapped bathroom down the hall? I looked inside but all I could see was a crater where the toilet used to be, a pair of empty Doc Martens, a blast pattern on the ceiling, and a discarded Big Bell Meal Box. Then these men in black showed up and told me all I saw was "swamp gas" and there never was any explosion and what's more, Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, shot and killed John F. Kennedy.

MSto

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:30:23 -0500

gross rumbling jokes run amuck!

OldPosterKnownAsCranky

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:30:19 -0500

And doesn't it make sense that the super secret gov't agency would of course deny it was them. As the wise philosopher Shaggy said, "It wasn't me."

htlvhwy

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:30:12 -0500

Man, I'm actually kinda disappointed! I didn't feel a damn thing here in Falls Church/Merrifield. Well, besides job-related ennui.

CDC

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:29:52 -0500

I'm in Springfield and I felt it - windows rattled and the house shook a bit, and I first looked around thinking there must be a very large truck outside or something like that.

Rukasu

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:29:45 -0500

@Reid: Its where people that specialize in GIS work 500 feet below the surface of the Earth to plot maps and satellite images of said Earth to hunt down Al Qaeda and other turrsts

flapjack

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:29:04 -0500

Reid - they do mapping and satellite imagery hence the geospatial part of the name. The data and imagery they collect is used by the intelligence community for all sorts of things that we're not allowed to know about. NGA History

desaparecido

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:28:19 -0500

you guys are so cute with your 1.8 earthquake stories...

Reid

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:21:24 -0500

Wait, wait, hold the phone. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency?! What the hell is that nefarious sounding agency? That sounds like the type of agency that doesn't need dynamite to blow stuff up. Maybe the earthquake was caused by Office Movers accidentally dropping their anti-gravityficationator machine.

OldPosterKnownAsCranky

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:17:50 -0500

I felt nothing at the time, although I was using the little boys' room and was dealing with my own rumbling issues.

talklikepeople

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:14:05 -0500

ces12: I am at 17th and U, so we probably heard the same thing. Sounded pretty loud for a truck. Are you sure?

ces12

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:12:41 -0500

Somewhat related, but did anyone else hear that explosion last night around 9 PM? I heard it from U Street, went up to my roof to look around, but only heard sirens downtown. I can't find any news about it. Where on U Street? I heard a large boom up at 18th and U around 915 - think it was just a truck though.

mw2006

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:10:19 -0500

Sorry guys, that was one heck of a sneeze I just had.

erincarly

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:07:20 -0500

from the USGS site: Magnitude 1.8 Date-Time * Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 17:30:23 UTC * Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 01:30:23 PM at epicenter Location 38.828°N, 77.234°W Depth 10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program Region VIRGINIA Distances * 2 km (1 miles) WSW (250°) from Annandale, VA * 3 km (2 miles) NW (320°) from North Springfield, VA * 3 km (2 miles) SE (143°) from Mantua, VA * 6 km (4 miles) NNE (32°) from Burke, VA * 12 km (8 miles) WSW (242°) from Arlington, VA * 21 km (13 miles) WSW (244°) from Washington, DC Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 1.7 km (1.1 miles); depth fixed by location program Parameters NST= 6, Nph= 13, Dmin=70.2 km, Rmss=0.3 sec, Gp=151°, M-type=duration magnitude (Md), Version=1 Source * Lamont-Doherty Cooperative Seismographic Network (LCSN) Event ID ld1022071

talklikepeople

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:04:56 -0500

erincarly

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:03:05 -0500

i just had a conversation this morning on the benefits of living here vs. california, and the lack of earthquakes was on the top of my list. dammit!

ballsdudeballs

Tue, 06 May 2008 15:01:29 -0500

My co-worker and I felt it, we are at eisenhower ave in alexandria

fozzie33

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:57:54 -0500

my wife teaches at annandale high school... they thought there was an explosion, it sounded like a bomb to them

Rukasu

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:56:57 -0500

http://wtop.com/?nid=600&sid=1399162 nope...was in fact an earthquake

rosscott

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:56:41 -0500

i felt it here in dupont circle. not earth-shattering or anything, but we all wondered what it was.

Rukasu

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:55:14 -0500

A few of my co-workers felt this at Arlington Hall, way too far from Ft. Belvoir methinks.

flapjack

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:52:25 -0500

I was wondering why I was swaying around earlier but then I remembered I've been sniffing Sharpies all morning.

washwords

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:50:49 -0500

dang. you guys are so fast. was just about to post this from "arlington alerts" via my sister and boyfriend's sister, both of whom felt it.

monkeyrotica

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:50:22 -0500

Did you feel the rumble? No, but I think we now know why Taco Bell Chili Cheese Burritos are "Not available at all locations." The morlocks took them all. Would not want to be trapped in their tunnels an hour after lunch. You never have these kids of "tremors" with Bacon Club Chalupas. They go down and they stay down.

fozzie33

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:49:49 -0500

from wtop: Ground rumbles in parts of Northern Virginia May 6, 2008 - 2:38pm WASHINGTON - Ground rumblings in parts of Northern Virginia left many people wondering whether they were feeling an earthquake on Tuesday. In an advisory to federal agencies, FEMA's Operations says that the National Earthquake Information Center is reporting the D.C. area experienced rumblings equivalent to a magnitude 2 to 3 earthquake. It is unclear whether the rumblings were an actual earthquake or due to another cause, the FEMA advisory says. The rumblings rattled parts of Northern Virginia - including Vienna, Falls Church, Annandale and Baileys Crossroads - around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. Some people tell WTOP the rumbling felt like an earthquake. There is no word on any damage. Blasts are scheduled at Ft. Belvoir at 4:15 p.m. The blasts are part of the construction at Ft. Belvoir for the new National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. The agency is moving its headquarters to Ft. Belvoir and as part of the region's base realignment and closure project. Ft. Belvoir officials say people may feel more rumblings over the new few days from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Copyright 2008 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.) WASHINGTON - Ground rumblings in parts of Northern Virginia left many people wondering whether they were feeling an earthquake on Tuesday. In an advisory to federal agencies, FEMA's Operations says that the National Earthquake Information Center is reporting the D.C. area experienced rumblings equivalent to a magnitude 2 to 3 earthquake. It is unclear whether the rumblings were an actual earthquake or due to another cause, the FEMA advisory says. The rumblings rattled parts of Northern Virginia - including Vienna, Falls Church, Annandale and Baileys Crossroads - around 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. Some people tell WTOP the rumbling felt like an earthquake. There is no word on any damage. Blasts are scheduled at Ft. Belvoir at 4:15 p.m. The blasts are part of the construction at Ft. Belvoir for the new National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. The agency is moving its headquarters to Ft. Belvoir and as part of the region's base realignment and closure project. Ft. Belvoir officials say people may feel more rumblings over the new few days from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Copyright 2008 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)

IMGoph

Tue, 06 May 2008 14:49:36 -0500

oh shit, oh shit...it's the morlock/chud war. we're screwed!