Shaker Shaking — 5.1 near Ferndale

Felt the shift, a gentle shudder as I had just sat down in front of my laptop — the reaches here off a decent-sized earthquake northwest of Ferndale, and about 65 miles southwest from where my ass had plunked down.
According to the USGS, a 5.1 shaker rattled this Friday afternoon, a couple minutes after five o’clock — first biggie in awhile.
DetailsĀ indicated a 2.2 intensity just a couple of miles from my apartment, yet the span of shaking was apparently widespread.

After I felt that initial (and so far, the only) movement, I quickly went to the USGS main site, but no indicator there of a quake. Earth movements are odd, a near-surreal flutter of motion, and living in ‘quake country’ influences the senses — there’s nothing like the sensation.
So I continued surfing the afternoon news sites — I follow a set list of ‘favorites’ — until I reached Lost Coast Outpost. Somebody’s quick on the handle there as they’d just posted about it.
I quickly-clicked on the USGS, and there it be.

Although there has been no reports of damage or injury so far, thisĀ via SFGate did express a sense of nature: ‘“It felt like a big truck hit our building,” said Gretchen Anderson, an employee at Aalfs Evans LLP in Eureka.’

Updates maybe later in the evening…

(Illustration above found here).

Bruce Maulden

Bruce Maulden is a writer and former newspaper journalist. A graduate of the University of Florida, he began a newspaper career in the mid-1970s as a police reporter at The Montgomery Advertiser in Montgomery, Ala.

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