MINERAL, Va. (AP) — Office buildings, schools and
towering landmarks were being inspected Wednesday for hidden structural flaws a
day after initial checks turned up little damage from a rare East Coast
earthquake.
Public schools and a handful of government
buildings in Washington remained closed for further assessment, and engineers
were taking a closer look at cracks in the Washington Monument and broken
capstones at the National Cathedral. Some residents of D.C. suburbs were
staying in shelters because of structural concerns at their apartment
buildings.
Further south, Tuesday's 5.8-magnitude quake also
shattered windows and wrecked grocery stores near its Virginia epicenter. There
were no known deaths or serious injuries.
The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
said the quake serves as a reminder for residents to be prepared.
"We talk about hurricanes this time of year,
but we forget that A: earthquakes don't have a season and B: they are not just
a western hazard," FEMA administrator Craig Fugate said in an interview
Wednesday on ABC's Good Morning America.
When the quake struck, many feared terrorism in New
York and Washington — places where nerves are raw as the 10th anniversary of
the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks approaches. The tremblor sent many pouring from
high-rises like the Empire State Building.
"I ran down all 60 flights," accounting
office worker Caitlin Trupiano said. "I wasn't waiting for the
elevator."
Chris Kardian, working in his garage in suburban
Richmond, Va., not far from the epicenter, opted for the more prosaic and
plausible: He blamed the shaking on two of his children in the overhead
playroom.
"I just thought they were running around and
being really loud," he said. "After about 15 seconds, it didn't stop
and I thought, 'I don't have that many kids in the house!'"
The most powerful earthquake to strike the East
Coast in 67 years shook buildings and jarred as many as 12 million people. The
U.S. Geological Survey said it was centered 40 miles northwest of Richmond in
Mineral.
The U.S. Park Service evacuated and closed all
monuments and memorials along the National Mall. The Pentagon, the White House,
the Capitol and federal agencies in and around Washington were evacuated. Roads
out of the city were clogged with commuters headed home.
Stressed-out D.C. mother of four Marion Babcock,
who spent two hours traffic instead of her normal 25 minutes, did the only
sensible thing for her frazzled, frightened kids: "I treated their
post-traumatic stress with copious amounts of chocolate mint and cookie dough
ice cream."
Between cell phones and social networks, news of
the quake seemed to travel faster than the temblor itself.
Jenna Scanlon of Floral Park, N.Y., ended a phone
call with someone in McLean, Va., and announced to her office colleagues there
had been an earthquake. Seconds later, 7 World Trade Center began to shake.
The scope of the damage — or lack of — also quickly
became clear on social networks. Instead of collapsed freeways, people posted
images of toppled lawn chairs and yogurt cups, broken Bobbleheads, picture frames
askew on walls.
On Facebook, people joked with posts such as
"S&P has downgraded earthquake to a 2.0," a swipe at the rating
agency that recently lowered the federal government's creditworthiness. Another
suggested New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a large man, had just "jumped
into" the presidential race.
A 5.8-magnitude quake releases as much energy as
almost eight kilotons of TNT, about half the power of the atomic bomb dropped
on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II.
Still, those along the West Coast who are used to
the earth moving couldn't help but take a jab or two.
"Really all this excitement over a 5.8
quake??? Come on East Coast, we have those for breakfast out here!!!!"
wrote Dennis Miller, a lifelong California resident whose Pleasanton home sits
on a fault line.
A 5.8, he said, wouldn't even wake him from his
sleep.
"We were laughing," said 26-year-old San
Francisco resident Stellamarie Hall, "but we definitely understand that
New York and certain metropolitan areas are not designed around
earthquakes."
The earthquake that devastated Japan released more
than 60,000 times more energy than Tuesday's, but there was real damage. At the
majestic Washington National Cathedral, at least three of the four top stones
on the central tower fell off, and cracks appeared in the flying buttresses at
the cathedral's east end, the oldest part of the structure. The top of the
Washington Monument has a crack.
Ceiling tiles fell to the floor at Reagan National
Airport. The gothic-style Smithsonian Castle, built in 1857, had minor cracks
and broken glass. And vigorous shaking left a crack and hole in the ceiling at
historic Union Station when a chunk of plaster fell near the main entrance.
The steeple and bell tower at St. Patrick Catholic
Church in Baltimore were badly damaged, and the building was closed as a
precaution.
In West Virginia, environmental regulators sent
engineers to inspect massive coal slurry dams that could wipe out entire
communities if they were to fail and release billions of gallons of wastewater.
Meanwhile, the Tennessee Valley Authority said that
checks of its dams and nuclear plants in several states had turned up no
problems.
Amtrak said trains along the Northeast Corridor
between Baltimore and Washington were operating at reduced speeds and crews
were inspecting stations and railroad infrastructure before returning to
normal.
Even those who knew what was happening had braced
for worse, some remembering the Indian Ocean quake that triggered a tsunami and
a nuclear disaster in Japan.
"I knew it was an earthquake, but my first
thought was, 'Oh my God, something's going to happen to the power plant,"
said 21-year-old Whitney Thacker in Mineral, Va., a town near the epicenter
where the sidewalks were littered with fallen stones, masonry and broken glass.
"It was scary."
Dominion Virginia Power shut down its two-reactor
nuclear power plant within 10 miles of the quake's epicenter, but said there
was no evidence of any damage to the decades-old North Anna Power Station.
In a news release, the utility company said
off-site power to the nuclear plant was restored Tuesday night and it was no
longer relying on backup generators. The utility didn't say when the plant's
two reactors would be restarted.
By the standards of the West Coast, where
earthquakes are much more common, the Virginia quake was mild. Since 1900,
there have been 40 of magnitude 5.8 or greater in California alone.
But quakes in the East tend to be felt across a
much broader area, the waves traveling "pretty happily out for
miles," said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Susan Hough.
The last quake of equal power to strike the East
Coast was in New York in 1944. The largest East Coast quake on record was a 7.3
that hit South Carolina in 1886.
The fear in some places was real.
Michael Leman had been mowing a neighbor's lawn in
Mineral when bricks began falling from a chimney and the earth heaved a large
propane tank about a foot off the ground.
"I thought that tank was about to
explode," he said, "and I ran for dear life."
Lewis reported from Mineral, and Smith from
Morgantown, W.Va. Contributing to this report were: Zinie Chen Sampson in
Mineral; Hank Kurz in Richmond; Larry Neumeister, Verena Dobnik and Adam Geller
in New York; Seth Borenstein, Charles Babington, Stephen Ohlemacher, Eileen
Sullivan, Mark Sherman, Jack Gillum and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington; Barbara
Ortutay in San Francisco; and Tom Withers in Cleveland.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
(AP Photo/Steve Helber)
