An earthquake emanating from upstate New York shook some Rhode Islanders awake yesterday morning, buckling roads and bringing down chimneys in the Adirondacks but causing no damage or injuries locally.
The quake, considered moderately powerful, hit at 6:50 a.m., registering 5.1 on the Richter scale, with its epicenter 15 miles southwest of Plattsburgh, N.Y., according to the U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center. No injuries were immediately reported.
Barbara A. O'Neil, 44, of Greenville, said she awoke to find her queen-sized bed shaking.
"My first thought was, 'What the heck are they doing next door?' " O'Neil said, noting that she lives in Orchard Gate, "a quiet townhouse community, with no dogs and no motorcycles."
She said she looked outside to see if the umbrella had fallen over on her first-floor deck. It hadn't. "Then I thought maybe I was dreaming," she said.
O'Neil read the paper, drank some coffee and turned on the television, which was broadcasting news of the earthquake. "I said, 'Ah, hah, that's what happened. I wasn't dreaming."
By noon yesterday, New York's Clinton and Essex counties had declared states of emergency amid reports of water-main breaks and collapsed roads, including a 200-foot portion of Route 9N in the town of Au Sable, 12 miles south of Plattsburgh. About 1,500 people in the Jay, N.Y., area lost power for a few hours, and officials were planning to check roads and bridges around the epicenter.
The quake could be felt from Canada to Boston to Baltimore to Buffalo. In Brooklyn, it felt like the subway train was rolling by, and in Albany, New York Gov. George E. Pataki said he could feel the quake at the Governor's Mansion.
In Rhode Island, police and fire departments reported no injuries or damage resulting from the quake, said Albert A. Scappaticci, executive director of the state's Emergency Management Agency. The center of the quake was pretty far away, "but 5.1 on the Richter scale is quite a good shake," he said.
Fern Anderson, 84, of Pawtucket, was reading the newspaper and eating an English muffin when her sixth-floor apartment began to shake.
"I thought it was something up on the roof. I said maybe an air-conditioning unit fell or something," Anderson said. "I didn't even think of an earthquake."
But a friend called a few hours later to ask if she'd felt the quake. "Son of a gun," Anderson said, "that's what I felt this morning."
Michael Manoog Kaprielian, 52, of Providence, said he'd been up doing some work and was heading back to bed when his building began to shake. "I was putting my foot on the floor, and there was no terra firma there at all," he said. "There was nothing I could put my hand on without this trembling."
Kaprielian, who owns a 12-unit apartment building at Wayland Square, said he waited to hear if it was a truck passing by, but there was no noise. That's when he realized it was an earthquake.
A Red Cross volunteer who went to New York City after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and to Armenia after a 1988 earthquake, Kaprielian estimated that the shaking lasted 30 seconds. "But it seemed like an eternity," he said.
In the past 20 years, Kaprielian said he has felt three earthquakes in Rhode Island, and this was the biggest. He said the tremor made him think about the damage that could result if the epicenter had been in Providence. "It's humbling," he said. "It's nature."
William Ott, a seismologist at Boston College's Weston Observatory, called yesterday's earthquake "moderate." A typical magnitude 5.1 earthquake would cause cracked plaster, broken windows and minor structural damage around the epicenter, he said.
New England experiences an earthquake that can be felt between three and six times a year, John Ebel, Weston Observatory's director, told The Journal last year. By contrast, the same type of quake happens every three or four days on the West Coast.
Experts have said the last big earthquake to strike Rhode Island was in 1755, but they've also warned that a dangerous quake could be decades away or any day now. They've said a large earthquake could cause widespread damage in the region, in part because many New England buildings were constructed before building codes were updated to include earthquake protection.
After yesterday's quake, O'Neil said she began thinking about buying earthquake insurance, but she decided against it. "I remember the Blizzard of '78 like everyone else," the lifelong Rhode Island resident said. "But after 44 years, this is the first earthquake I remember."
With Journal wire reports
