Felt it here in southeast Iowa,from what I heard 5.4 at 4:37a.m. felt like the house was in a swimming pool,but I just want everyone to know, the palms are fine!I did not see the damage,but like you said mike if you can feel it this far away you know it's bad!Can you imagine if there was a qauke as bad as the one that caused the mississippi to flow backwards while all this flooding going on?what a one-two punch that would be!

Hi Jim and Mike

I just saw a documentary recently about the huge one in the early 1800s that made the Mississippi flow backwards; it was felt throughout the entire east coast, and was also the largest recorded quake in US history - even Alaska.

It also pointed out that due to the relatively flat terrain that a quake which would barely be noticed in California could cause some real damage east of Colorado.

Good luck and I hope it was a singular event.

Alan

People in SE Michigan claim to have felt it. I heard something fall off of a tabel in my bedrrom while I was half asleep. I assumed one of my cats knocked whatever it was over. Who knows. I read the other day that they are 99.7% sure that LA will be hit by an at least 6.5 quake in the next 30 years. It may be time to move back east.

I woke up at 4:35 this morning just a few minutes before it hit. I heard strange sound like a deep boom boom, but it was not loud. Almost like someone was moving a big 55 gallon drum down the street but trying to be quiet about it. Things rattled a little. Suddenly it broke loose and it was like being in a dream. The mirror banging the wall, the closet door moving back and forth. Stuff started falling off the night stand. I've been through quakes before so I wasn't really worried, but being this close to the New Madrid fault you never know if its going to be the big one. But it wasn't. No real damage at my house. Just a few little messes to clean up. Some folks close to the center had more damage.

But I didn't need my morning coffee today. LOL

well its good to see your ok

I bet youguys must have felt really wierd huh? Im use to earthquakes. They're part of life here in Cal, much like hurricanes and tornadoes are part of life in the midwest. I persoanally think that hurricanes and tornadoes are much scarier than earthquakes, but then again, i'm accustomed to earthquakes. I lived in L.A. when the 1987 6.6 earthquake hit, and was in San Francisco when the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake hit. The L.A. one was the scariest one i've been in. Here is a link to a news report of the Los Angeles one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcoHJHo8d6k

And a link to a video about the Loma Prieta Earthquake of San Francisco:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZI2tvCr24Y&feature=related

Here is a link to a map of recent seismic activity in the US. Notice there is a blue square where the center of that earthquake was at. The blue means it happened within the last day. Here is the link:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/

Now, check out the map for California and Nevada. Again, the blue means the earthquake happened within the last day, yellow means one that occured within the last week, and red means one that occured within the last hour.

Here is a link that might be useful: click here to see seismic activity in Cal & Nev

I forgot to mention, we has 2.7 magnitude shake centered just 16 miles from my house on Monday (4/14/08), a 2.0 shake today just 40 miles south, and a 1.8 shake 30 miles east also today.

I agree, tornadoes are probably the scariest of all, but also the least destructive as a whole, because they don't usually stay on the ground for very long. One house can be demolished, while the house next to it is still standing almost untouched.

We rarely get hurricanes reaching up here in southern Michigan, the last mentionable one was in 1941, almost 70 years ago. We do get tornadoes, but they're pretty rare. Living on a peninsula has its advantages. Now if we had a hurricane travel west from New York, then we would be in for some trouble. Here's a site about remnants of hurricanes reaching southern Michigan.

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dtx/stories/dtxcane.php

Personally, the threat of earthquakes coupled with wildfires would leave me a nervous wreck, and probably leave my house a wreck too.

If you think about it though, Florida probably has it the worst of any state, with all its hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires. I still intend to move there though. You have to sacrifice to live in beautiful weather.

I agree hurricanes are wicked,but you usually have plenty of warning,however tornados are the scariest because you can be busy and not realize whats up,last tuesday I watched a 50-60mph wind(a wall about 1000'wide) roll dowm my street from east to west blowing out of the north,the wind was out of the east all day at 25-35mph,but was blowing out of the s.w. at appprox 30mph when this happened,as it passed by me it hit the wind coming from the oppisite direction and started to spin up over the top of the 4story building to the west of my house,I never saw it connect with the clouds(which were LOW and moving fast)but there was quite a bit of damage in the direction this mini twist up occurred one blk north west of my place,pretty weird because they usually don't move too the northwest,usually parallel the cold front from s.w.too n.e. a freind shot this pic a few miles east of town around the same time-

Here is a link that might be useful:

You could feel them up here in London Ontario Canada - it was felt in Windsor too - if you were in highrise.