Earthquake in DC

[Dragonfighter]

I was at the Hertz counter in Andrews AFB when it hit. Based on what I've felt in SF a few times it was definitely mid to high 3's. The flag poles wobbled, stuff fell over and off of shelves and most got wide eyed. The poor lady behind the counter thought she was done and asked, "What was THAT?!" I told her it was an earthquake and she goes into "What do we do, what do we do?" I said, "Well nothing, it's over." She asked me if I was worried and I told her, "I'm alive and if I wasn't I wouldn't be worried about this car rental."

I told my sister about the conversation and she said, "I bet she was glad you were there to comfort her," with a in her voice.

[RPB]

Interesting

Obama in DC, stocks plummet
with Earthquake hitting DC, Hurricane on the way .... stocks rise

I guess there's the promised Hope for change after all

[jimlongley]

I used to live near train tracks. I wonder what that rumble would register on the Richter scale.

My off-the-cuff guess is high-2s to mid-3s. <JeremyClarkson>To find out, I went to wikipedia.</JeremyClarkson> (I think I've been watching too much Top Gear again...)

I lived within 2 blocks of a switch yard growing up and had several relatives that worked for MoPac railroad. It all depends on the type of train, engine, speed, etc. The biggest hit and shake (not counting when the boxcar full of military munitions blew up 25 miles away down the tracks) was when they would couple cars in the switch yard, which felt about like a 3 -3.5 two blocks away in the house.

As to the explosion, it blew windows out of the houses within a mile of the train, and we felt it shake our house like about a 4.0 from 25 miles away. Was in the middle of the night, so was quiet and nothing else moving around the area or in the switch yard.

Kind of dating myself, but when I was a kid, the D&H railroad was still running steam. In Albany the the D&H yard was the Kenwood yard, and when the trains came up out of the Hudson Valley along the Normanskill river and through Elsmere, Delmar, and Slingerlands, they were really pounding on the drivers, not like the relatively smooth diesels that came in shortly thereafter, and when those double heads pounded, the ground shook enough that plates in the cupboard rattled, and that was an old house about a quarter mile from the nearest approach of the tracks.