Steve Burns
WMAL.com
Where were you five years ago today, at 1:52pm?
You were likely looking around, wondering if it’s your imagination, a large truck, or an actual earthquake striking the east coast. It turned out to be a magnitude 5.8 earthquake, with an epicenter about 100 miles south of Washington, D.C. It was likely the most widely-felt earthquake in United States history, moving through a dozen states and into Canada. Some in places like New York and Boston read reports of the quake on Twitter a full 15 seconds before feeling it themselves.
“It was a game-changer as far as understanding earthquakes in the Eastern U.S.,” Geologist wright Horton tells WMAL. Horton says his team at the United States Geological Survey has spent the past few years trying to learn more about eastern earthquakes after the 2011 quake sparked their interest.
“The earthquakes along plate boundaries like in California, Japan, New Zealand are much mroe common and better understand. The ones that occur in places like Virginia are really not well understood at all,” Wright says. “We don’t really have a handle on how often we can have an earthquake of this magnitude or larger (in this region).”
USGS research has indicated two other possible earthquake events in the region over the last 5,000 years.
There were no fatalities reported and few minor injuries, but structures throughout the east and in Washington, D.C. saw significant damage. As earthquakes aren’t nearly as common in the east as they are in a place like California, building codes are much more lax.
“We had about $34 million in damages,” National Cathedral spokesman Kevin Extrom tells WMAL. “Probably the most heavily-damaged structure in Washington.”
He said cracks developed in the roof and rock came tumbling down, even beheading a gargoyle. But repair work hasn’t been nearly as robust as they would’ve liked over the last five years.
“These aren’t pieces you can buy off the shelf at Wal-Mart,” Extrom says. “There’s a full 87% of the building’s exterior that needs some sort of earthquake repair or restoration.”
He estimates it could be a decade or more before all work is done, thanks to slowing funding. Scaffolding has ringed the building now for a while.
“A lot of people look at the building, see the scaffolding, and assume we’re busy repairing it,” Extrom says. “We’d like to be, as soon as we have the funding in place. It was built with the generosity of people from across the country, and that’s how it’s being repaired.”
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(Photo: CNN)
