The next event that I wished to speak about was one that took place in Virginia, but almost everyone in State College, Pennsylvania as well as many other states could relate to. I still remember when it happened; we were sitting in SRA 471 when all of a sudden the ground began to shake from three stories up. Our initial reaction to this was we have seen construction workers working by the IST building recently and they must just be using jackhammers. We began to think otherwise after the shaking had not ended for about an entire minute and got stronger before it had ended. Some people were scared that they had just felt their first earthquake, but I on the other hand was excited to have just experienced my first earthquake. It was a very thrilling for me because since I was born Pennsylvania had never received any earthquakes due to the mountains surrounding it. It was a shock to my system and I needed to immediately figure out what had happened.
The technology out today is so impressive and like all the discussions we had in SRA 397A I finally lived some of it. Within minutes of the earthquake social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter were booming with information about the earthquake. Some of the posts were simply people asking if that was an earthquake felt in roughly 6 different states, while others were descriptive posts telling exactly what had happened. Social networking has truly become an amazing tool in disaster relief. It was not till this moment in tome that I had realized what a key role it actually played in real life. Yet another important technology that we usually take advantage of until times of crisis would be the cell phone. Minutes after the earthquake I received almost 50 text messages saying either what happened, asking if I was alright, and most importantly informing me what exactly happened. The final important technology used in times of crisis for disaster relief is simply the internet. After minutes on Google we had found out that we had felt this earthquake’s aftershocks all the way from Virginia.
It turns out that the earthquake in Virginia was considered a 5.8 on the Rictor Scale and occurred on Tuesday August 23, 2011 at 1:51 PM. According to the reports from the USGS, “Moderately heavy damage (VIII) occurred in a rural region of Louisa County southwest of Mineral. Widespread light to moderate damage occurred from central Virginia to southern Maryland including the Washington D.C. area. Minor damage reported in parts of Delaware, southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. Very strongly felt (VII) at Boston, Bumpass, Kent Store, Louisa, Mineral, Rhoadsville and Summerduck. Felt strongly in much of central Virginia and southern Maryland. Felt throughout the eastern US from central Georgia to central Maine and west to Detroit, Michigan and Chicago, Illinois. Felt in many parts of southeastern Canada from Montreal to Windsor”. This was very interesting because earthquakes do not usually occur in this area. Below you can see more information on the earthquake in this video:
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