Illinois Earthquake Felt Strongly in St. Louis, Missouri

This morning, I was woken by some pretty good shaking. Turns out that it was a 5.2 magnitude earthquake. My husband and son weren’t brought all the way out of sleep, but, this ex-Californian knew what was going on, and listened to hear if there was anything breaking in the house.

This was about twenty minutes to 5:00am. There were some low-level aftershocks all morning that you couldn’t feel (under 3.0), but, around 10:15 am there was a vigorous 4.5 shaking going on. I felt the first one for a good thirty (30) seconds, and the bigger aftershock for almost twenty (20) seconds.

It’s an odd feeling, having the building moving back and forth laterally. Really odd. My boss was in the elevator at the time and didn’t really even notice it (of course, he also reported sleeping right through this morning’s activities.

I posted on my CAD/CAFM blog earlier today, mostly recounting some childhood experiences with earthquakes in Illinois and California (we weren’t in San Fransisco itself, but, were nearby).

I believe that the Kingshighway Blvd overpass that was shut between Shaw and Southwest is entirely reopened by the point and the Department of Transportation has enacted their emergency earthquake plan and completed the inspections of all of their nearby bridges (some of the older ones will be examined again later just to ensure their safety).