Earthquake

I was sitting here, typing an email last night when I heard a loud rumbling and the house shook. My first thought was that it was extra loud thunder and I yanked the modem connection out. But that wasn’t it at all. I ran down the hall toward the bedroom where my husband was sleeping. He already had the lamp on, trying to figure out why the bed was shaking. We were both terrified. Can you tell we’re simply not used to earthquakes here in the mountains of NC? We went outside and heard the rumbling moving off toward the east. It was a 3.7 on the Richter scale and happened at 11:09 pm. It didn’t even wake some people, but others were as mystified as we were. Even the local TV news covered it. Someone has said it started in the French Broad river.

According to this website:
http://www.high-point.net/dept/fire/em/eq.htm
"North Carolina is affected by both the New Madrid fault in Missouri and the Charleston fault in South Carolina. Both these faults have generated earthquakes measuring greater than 8 on the Richter scale during the last two hundred years."

Yikes! That was more than I wanted to know. I don’t personally remember experiencing another earthquake, though both my husband and my mother do. Not severe ones, thank goodness.

And also from the above website: "Natural hazards present the greatest threat to the residents of North Carolina. Over the past twelve years, there have been a significant number of earthquakes recorded in the southeastern United States. In 1987 alone there were over 71 recorded earthquakes, the largest being an earthquake registering 4.2 on the Richter scale occurring on the North Carolina/Tennessee border."

Okay, why don't I remember this? I was probably in a coma-like state of exhaustion from too much studying since I was in college that year. Anyway, you can read more about last night's tremor here:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqsww/Quakes/usceaf.htm