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Local people feel earth shake after Quebec quake

People are evacuated from downtown Dayton buildings on Wednesday, June 23 after an earthquake in Canada caused buildings in the Dayton area to shake.

Staff Photo by Jim Noelker People are evacuated from downtown Dayton buildings on Wednesday, June 23 after an earthquake in Canada caused buildings in the Dayton area to shake.

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A reported underground explosion knocked out power to the traffic signals and businesses along Brown Street and parts of the UD campus on Wednesday, June 23.

Staff Photo by Chris Stewart A reported underground explosion knocked out power to the traffic signals and businesses along Brown Street and parts of the UD campus on Wednesday, June 23.

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People gather outside 40 W. Fourth Street in downtown Dayton, Wednesday afternoon after being evacuated after people felt the buildings shake.

Staff Photo by Jim Noelker People gather outside 40 W. Fourth Street in downtown Dayton, Wednesday afternoon after being evacuated after people felt the buildings shake.

By Lou Grieco, Doug Page and Anthony Gottschlich
Staff Writers Updated 11:11 PM Wednesday, June 23, 2010

DAYTON — Many people in the Dayton area reported feeling buildings shake about 2 p.m. today.

Michael Hansen of the Ohio Seismic Network said the shaking came from a magnitude 5.0 earthquake located on the border of Quebec and Ontario provinces in Canada, more than 700 miles from Dayton.

“I was watching (on the computer) when all of a sudden these waves started coming through,” Hansen said from the center outside of Delaware. “This the biggest regional one we’ve had in our part of the world since we began in 1999.”

The next closest was in 2008 when a magnitude 5.2 quake hit southern Illinois.

Reports came in from Miami Valley Hospital, Reynolds and Reynolds in Kettering, Wright State University in Fairborn and 40 W. Fourth Street in downtown.

“Something was felt on campus,” Wright State spokesman Jim Hannah. Calls started coming in around 1:50 p.m., said Hannah, who got his information from the university’s casualty prevention office. Some people on the top floors of some buildings said they noticed their computer monitors shaking, Hannah said.

“There’s no reports of any damage, no power outages, no injuries,” Hannah said.

According to the U.S. Geological Service, the quake was located 33 miles north-northeast of Ottawa at a depth of 11.2 miles. It struck at 1:41 p.m. The USGS received reports of the quake from 13 states, most in the Northeast, but residents of such Midwest states as Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio logged on to the USGS Web site to report feeling the quake.

The Ohio Emergency Management Agency sent a 2:45 p.m. memo alerting authorities to the Canadian quake and that there had been no reports of damage in Ohio so far, said Jeffrey Jordan, director of the Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management.

He said Montgomey County Sheriff’s dispatch and Kettering Police had received no reports of shaking buildings. He is calling other public safety authorities across the county to see if they have taken any reports.

The lights flickered on and off at Miami Valley Hospital, and the chairs and desks swayed, but the hospital never lost power, spokeswoman Nancy Thickel said.

The earthquake brought people out of their offices, who were eager to see what happened, but no one was evacuated and no emergency measures were employed.

Thickel said she thought it was the rumble of construction work, but realized the hospital’s construction is complete.

Dayton Fire Lt. Mark Roth said dispatchers sent an engine to 40 W. Fourth St., the headquarters for Premier Health Partners in downtown Dayton, after a few people felt “violent shaking.” No damage was found, and no damage has been reported anywhere else, Roth said.

Pam Clatterbuck, who works for Premier Health Partners, said an announcement came over the PA system telling workers that there was no emergency but that they should evacuate the building.

“Our building was shaking. It kind of made you feel nauseated.” Clatterbuck said. She said the building shook for seconds but “it felt like a long time.”

Dispatchers with the County Dispatch Center said that they had no calls for service related to tremors.

There were no power outages here associated with the earthquake, Dayton Power & Light Co. said, but about the same time, a power outage occurred that affected 488 customers, including the University of Dayton.

The outage stemmed from a problem with an underground cable at Main and Jasper streets. A manhole cover dislodged near the intersection, but no one was hurt, DP&L said.

Crews rerouted power and restored power to all affected customers by 2:06 p.m., the company said.

The slight shaking was probably more noticeable than the more than 200 home-grown quakes of magnitude 2.0 or higher that have rattled the state since 1776. There are no reported deaths by earthquake in the state in all that time and only minor injuries were reported in 2008, according to Michael Hansen of the Ohio Seismic Center.

Ohio has two active seismic zones — one in Shelby County around the village of Anna and another in the northeast part of the state — but no major fault lines, according to the seismic center.

Hansen said the Anna Rift Zone was formed a billion years ago and remains a zone of weakness. When there are subterranean movements under Ohio, they erupt in the rift zone or the Akron Magnetic Boundary, the other active zone, he said.

According to the center’s records, only three of the magnitude 2.0 or greater quakes in the state since 1776 have originated in Montgomery County: 1834, 1873 and 1950.

As to when the next quake may strike, “They happen when they happen,” Hansen said.

Staff writers Lynn Hulsey and Cornelius Frolick contributed to this report.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2290 or dpage@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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