Earthquake Rattles Homes and Nerves Sunday Morning

Sunday’s earthquake centered in North Carolina may not have caused any damage in our area but it was enough to rattle some nerves.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, on Sunday, at about 8:01a, Magnitude 5.1 earthquake occurred near Sparta, North Carolina, and was felt in our area from Rabun County to the Reed Creek Community in Hart County and beyond.

One listener in Hartwell reported the house and items inside the house began shaking.

Scientists with the USGS in Virginia say the quake occurred as a result of oblique-reverse fault shifts in the upper crust of the North American plate.

Don Blakeman is a geo-physicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Colorado.

Blakeman said quakes of that magnitude in our area are rare but they do happen.

He says there is a fault line there that runs through that area.

“I don’t know if the fault has a name, but whether or not it has a name we know it’s there because the earthquake happened. The thing to remember for people who are not used to earthquakes is, we have these once in a while. It’s much more common to have small events in the magnitude 2 – 3  range. There were like 8 foreshocks that occurred before this event and there were a number of aftershocks and those will continue for a little while,” he explained.

In the 20th century, one earthquake M5 and larger occurred within 100 km to this August 9th event, a M5.2 in the Great Smoky Mountains in 1916. The largest recent earthquake to impact the east coast was the M5.8 Mineral Virginia earthquake on August 23rd, 2011, roughly 300 km to the northeast of this August 9th earthquake. The Mineral Virginia earthquake was felt widely across the east coast and caused damage to the Washington Monument.

Blakeman said the quake was felt as far away as the metro Atlanta area, and while rare in our area, it’s still a good idea to be prepared.

“Instead of worrying about earthquakes it’s a good idea to be prepared in cases there is one. You can do things like if you have a bookcase, make sure it’s anchored to the wall so it doesn’t fall over on someone. And think about where you want to be if there’s an earthquake, like under a bed or in a hallway. Since we can’t predict earthquakes, those are the kinds of things you can do,” he said.

Doug Outlaw with the National Weather Service in Greenville-Spartanburg said there was damage to buildings in the Sparta, NC area, and reports of cracks of about an inch or more wide in some roadways there.

However, no injuries have been reported.

Outlaw said there were foreshocks reported in the Carolinas Saturday night.

Blakeman said so far over 100,000 people have clicked on the Did You Feel It? page on the USGS Web site to report having felt the quake Sunday.

For information on Sunday’s quake, you can go to the USGS earthquake page at: https://www.usgs.gov/news/magnitude-51-earthquake-near-sparta-north-carolina