Every one was talking about it today and half of the U.S. felt it's tremors....as a 5.9 Magnitude Earthquake shook up the East Coast.
The quake's epicenter was Mineral, Va., 84 miles from Washington and southwest of Fredericksburg. The shock waves began at 1:51 p.m. and shook buildings and sidewalks for roughly 15 seconds, triggering fire alarms throughout the region and sending thousands of evacuated employees into the streets.
So far there are no reports of serious injuries or deaths. But people in Virgina, Washington DC, NYC, Massachusetts, Georgia and many more places along the East Coast felt the quake.
One person even wrote on Twitter,
"I saw the tweets from DC about earthquake, then 15 seconds later felt it in NYC. Social media is faster than seismic waves!"
The quake was centered near a nuclear power plant, raising concerns that the facility could have been damaged.....a scary reminder of Japan's quake a few months ago.
This led to the shut down the North Anna nuclear plant roughly 40 miles northwest of Richmond, Va., not far from the quake’s epicenter.
Both reactors at the Dominion Power-operated plant automatically shut down as designed in response to the quake, NRC spokesman David McIntyre said. The plant’s diesel generators switched on when the plant eventually lost off-site power.
Twelve other nuclear plants across six states declared “unusual events” — the lowest NRC emergency classification — in response to the earthquake.
WHERE WAS PRESIDENT OBAMA?
President Barack Obama received updates on infrastructure damage during a post-quake conference call with senior advisers as well as NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko and Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
But it seems all of this, didn't let President Obama miss a beat. He was shown golfing all day on Martha's Vineyard.
IF YOUR HOME WAS DAMAGES DURING THE QUAKE:
You better cough up the money yourself...says the government.
Homeowners won’t be covered by standard property insurance policies ...
Earthquake protection is generally excluded from standard homeowners’ insurance policies, and consumers have to purchase coverage either as a separate policy or an endorsement to an existing policy.
They Most people who buy coverage live in quake-prone states, such as California, Washington and Missouri.During all of this, the stock market managed to sky rocket up.
The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 322 points, its best day since Aug. 11, when it gained 423. The Dow dipped about 60 points shortly after an earthquake hit the East Coast at 1:51 p.m., but recovered within 20 minutes and soared even higher in the last two hours of trading.
Go figure.
