Earthquake causes buzz, little else in Southeast Missouri

Southeast Missouri was abuzz with conversation Friday as vibrations from a magnitude-5.2 earthquake in southeast Illinois woke up and startled residents all across the region.

From libraries to schools to laundries, people were talking about the earthquake that occurred at 4:37 a.m. seven miles from a tiny town called West Salem in Edwards County near the Indiana border.

"I was sleeping pretty good," said Cape Girardeau resident Rene Phillips. "And my dresser started shaking."

Sharde Anderson, a Southeast Missouri State University student, said she was sleeping when she awoke with her leg shaking.

"I didn't find out till this morning that it was an earthquake. I thought it was a weird dream."

Jean Martin, who works at the public library, said several library patrons were talking about the quake, including one man who noted Southeast Missouri has seen ice storms, floods and now an earthquake.

"He said if he starts seeing locusts, he's heading for the hills," she said.

AARON EISENHAUER ~ aeisenhauer@semissourian.com Josh Wessel, a maintenance supervisor with the Missouri Department of Transportation marks the guard rail of a bridge on Route J in Cape County with green tape, indicating it is structurally sound following the early morning earthquake on Friday, April 18, 2008.

Some in Southeast Missouri weren't awakened by the shaking. Gary Patterson, manager of the Center for Earthquake Research and Information at the University of Memphis, said some structures far removed from an epicenter will be more likely to shake because of the properties of seismic waves in relation to a building's structure. Some buildings will act like a tuning fork, he said, and taller buildings are more likely to resonate with earthquake waves, as are structures on soft sediment.

It wasn't just members of the public talking about the subterranean hiccup. State, city and emergency preparedness officials were all addressing it, assessing possible damage and encouraging people to use the incident as a wake-up call.

Crews with the Cape Girardeau Fire Department and the city government's inspection and engineering wings did a survey of the city but found no significant damage on their cursory review, said fire chief Rick Ennis. Public works checked infrastructure, such as water lines and treatment plants, and found no damage, Ennis said.

"It was really a good exercise for us," Ennis said. "We really didn't expect to find any damage."

The Associated Press reported that Missouri Department of Transportation said it had found no problems after inspecting 2,500 bridges.

Locally the transportation agency had crews inspecting for damage in Southeast Missouri. By late afternoon, with almost all inspections complete, the transportation agency's Southeast district, based in Sikeston, said no damage had been found. Josh Wessel, a maintenance supervisor with MoDOT's Jackson office, said crews out of Jackson inspected 28 bridges in Cape Girardeau County and found no damage.

Inspectors were searching for cracks or buckling in the bridge deck, loose pavement, bent beams or girders, missing bolts or misaligned curbs or rails.

There have been no reports of injuries or serious damage in Missouri. But one bridge that may have been damaged by the earthquake was an overpass on South Kingshighway Boulevard in St. Louis. Debris fell from the overpass around the time the earthquake happened.

No injuries were reported in Missouri, and only minor property damage, according to a news release from Gov. Matt Blunt's office. Little damage was reported near the epicenter.

'It sounded terrible'

West Salem police chief Harvey Fenton said the damage was limited to a few small cracks in walls.

"It sounded terrible for a while," he said. "We're extremely lucky."

A photographer in Mount Carmel, Ill., captured an image of a porch awning that snapped away from the house during the quake.

Despite the lack of widespread damage, the quake was fairly powerful. It was felt as far away as Chicago and Nebraska.

Another quake, with a magnitude of 4.6, reverberated through the river region later Friday morning. It was the largest of several aftershocks. People shouldn't assume, however, that the pre-dawn tremble, which occurred in the Wabash Valley seismic zone, will spawn larger quakes along the New Madrid fault in Southeast Missouri, which scientists for years have predicted will unleash a monster rumble.

"My first reaction would be no," said Dr. Nicholas Tibbs, professor emeritus of geosciences at Southeast Missouri State University. He added, however, that earthquakes on rare occasions have been known to trigger earthquakes in other faults.

The Center for Earthquake Research and Information was sending a team to the epicenter of the quake to begin monitoring seismic activity there. That team will be joined by others from universities and public agencies around the region, Patterson said.

bmiller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 122

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182

Reactions to Friday's earthquake

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