Central VA Earthquake

As most of you have heard there was a 5.8 magnitude earthquake about 1:50 Tuesday afternoon here. This is the largest earthquake that VA has seen since 1897. The epicenter was located about 6 miles SSW of Mineral, VA. This puts it about about 6.5 miles North East of my house and 9 miles North of where my kids go to daycare. The quake lasted about a minute and shook people up good. I work an hour and 20 minutes from home, but I think I made it home in less than an hour. Due to high call volume, I could not call home to check on the kids, fortunately they are just fine. The day care does earthquake drills and put them into place. Our house suffered only minor problems, knocked stuff off of walls and shelves. We have one small crack in the wall. Our builder went through the neighborhood checking on the houses and no structural damage here.

Contrary to what the news has said there is significant damage and injuries from the earthquake, nothing serious, but several kids from the high school were treated or transported after a six foot crack opened up in a classroom big enough to see completely through the wall. Most of the damage seems to be north of the epicenter. I know of at least 1 house that was destroyed and a good friend's parent's house lost the deck and part of the right side of the house. The local post office side wall has buckled out causing a partial roof collapse and the grocery store looks like a hurricane went through it, all the shelves are knocked over and stuff is everywhere. The local schools are closed till September 6th till a full evaluation can be done, especially the three that are within 4 miles of the epicenter.

North Anna nucleur power station is 12 miles north of the epicenter and was taken off line as a precaution. as of 9:00 last night there has been no damage. The plant is designed to withstand a 9.0 earthquake. Several large aftershocks have kept the reactors offline for now.

Please keep in mind the people that live in the area, as of right now there is about $100 million in damage that will not be covered by insurance as most people around here don't have earthquake insurance and most regular policies don't cover the damage.

For those of you on the west coast laughing at us over here, keep in mind that we don't typically have earthquakes here and our structures are not built with earthquakes in mind like they are on the west coast.

Were are glad you are all ok and sorry to hear about the damage in your surrounding community...

I am guilty of a few pokes of fun as well... but Like you said even being a minor quake it has still disrupted many lives...no such thing as minor damage when its your house or your kids school...

also saw some masonary structures that lost bricks and such if any of those had hit anyone it could have been different...

again, glad your ok