December 17, 2009
By Andrew J. Nelson and Juan Perez Jr.
Omaha World-Herald
The earthquake that jolted Auburn, Neb., on Wednesday night was quick, loud and appears to have caused little damage.
The epicenter of the magnitude 3.5 quake was about two miles northwest of Auburn and about 51 miles southeast of Lincoln, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It occurred at about 8:53 p.m.
Cell phone service to the area was interrupted, either by the quake or the increased number of calls that followed it, one witness told The World-Herald, and the walls of some homes and businesses showed small cracks.
Marcia Goering, 63, lives with her husband on an acreage north of town.
“I was sitting in one room watching TV, and my husband was in another room,” she said. “All of a sudden, there was this really big noise and this jolt that just shook you back and forth really quick. It almost sounded like ... an explosion. That’s what it felt like.”
The couple found no visible damage to their house, only to a small rocking horse figurine that fell from a shelf.
Bob Cole, the emergency management director for Nemaha County, said crews would look for damage this morning. The tremor, though scary, wasn’t serious enough to send crews out into the night.
“I have a brother in California,” he said. “And by Southern California standards, they would probably think we were being silly.”
Most of North America east of the Rocky Mountains experiences infrequent earthquakes, according to the USGS. Earthquakes occur on faults within bedrock, usually miles deep. This one began about 3.1 miles below the surface.
Quakes east of the Rockies are typically felt over much broader regions than similar quakes on the West Coast, according to the USGS.
The largest recorded earthquake in the state’s history occurred March 28, 1964, when a magnitude 5.1 quake struck near Merriman, in Cherry County.
A lesser quake, one of similar magnitude to Wednesday’s, took place about 20 miles northeast of Auburn, in Fremont County, Iowa, in July 2004.
Wednesday’s quake could be felt as far away as northwest Missouri and southwest Iowa and throughout much of southeast Nebraska.
People in some parts of Auburn felt very little, if anything. Goering’s daughter, Sara, was in the Southside Bar & Grill at the time, and said people there were unaware of the quake until others called the bar and told them.
“I didn’t feel a thing,” she said.
According to the USGS, the first significant earthquake recorded in Nebraska was on April 24, 1867. Since then, at least seven earthquakes have originated in the state and several quakes in neighboring states have been felt in Nebraska.
http://www.omaha.com/article/20091217/NEWS01/712179819