<p>I did! I blamed my roommate thinking she was joking with me, but my bed did move and it wasn’t her. The university posted a note about the tremor, and it says we are 120 miles away.</p>
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<p>I am a military spouse, my DH has dragged me around the world, and I have jokingly said to him the only thing we haven’t experienced is a typhoon.</p>
<p>If you live in AK…earthquakes (been there done that got the patch)
If you live in KS…tornadoes (ditto)
If you live in NC…hurricanes (ditto)
If you live in ID…forest fires/high plain desert (ditto)
If you live in England…Gale Winds (ditto)</p>
<p>So far the safest place is VA…hurricanes are rare, tornados are rare, no forest fires, no gale winds, no earthquakes. </p>
<p>By far Hurricanes are the worse…the flooding is a horrendous, than you have no electricity (in the summer not a pretty sit with all of the humidity), no potable water. And all night long you watch the trees sway and hope that a tree that is soaked will not uproot and hit your house or your cars! Of course lets not forget you get to wake up in the morning and collect your garbage can that is now 3 houses over, and 5 million tree limbs in your yard.
The up side is every pulls out their grill and we have a block party grilling all of the meat that is in the freezer!</p>
<p>Just signing on to see if anyone who actually lives in Mt. Carmel or anyone else in southeastern Ill posts here. I live down there the first 14 years of my life. I remember an earthquake there back around 1970.</p>
<p>coureur,</p>
<p>Most people in Missouri, Arkansas and TN know this already, but for those who think of the midwest as a seismically stable area, perhaps you should know about the New Madrid fault and the possibility of a sizeable earthquake at some point. I believe Memphis (among large cities) is expected to bear the brunt, and St. Louis will lose a few bridges over the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers. </p>
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<p>(This quote is just from some random paper turned up by a two-second google search, but there is also a lot of official research out there.)</p>
<p>The fact is, we worry a lot more about tornadoes, but the possibility of a Big One is there.</p>
<p>missypie, I think the earthquake you are thinking of was in 1968. It shook our house in St. Louis, enough for me to run out of my house thinking something had blown up. (I was an easily rattled teenager at the time.)</p>
<p>If you felt the earthquake, please go to this map:
[Magnitude</a> 5.2 - ILLINOIS](<a href=“http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/eqinthenews/2008/us2008qza6/]Magnitude”>http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/eqinthenews/2008/us2008qza6/)</p>
<p>and enter your location under the “did you feel it?” link. Scientists at the US Geological Survey use such maps to identify faults.</p>
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<p>Yeah, I know about the New Madrid Fault, but somehow California has the big earthquake reputation. You never hear people say “Wow I could never live in Illinois or Missouri - I’d be too worried about earthquakes.” But people say that about CA all the time - even right here on CC.</p>
<p>We just had our strongest aftershock about 20 minutes ago, a 4.5 according to our news. However, it didn’t last very long. I have often thought I would trade tornadoes or earthquakes for hurricanes because you have so much forwarning to prepare. I think I would only stand by that thought if I had reliable transportation for evacuation though! I am way too chicken to ride out a hurricane.</p>
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<p>I laugh when I think about this. At some point in the mid 1980s there was a hurricane that roared all the way up the east coast and was actually predicted!! to travel up the Connecticut River from L. I. Sound and threaten us in western Massachusetts. People were running around boarding up their windows and buying candles and lanterns. My H and I had a ‘hurricane party’ instead and watched the trees blow a bit. </p>
<p>I guess maybe we were a tad too cavalier. There actually was hurricane-induced flooding in the area in the 1930s from a hurricane that did indeed come up the Connecticut River. Still, it seemed like a ludicrous possibility.</p>
<p>Coureur, there are a lot more people in the earthquake zones of California, so every tremor and every moderate quake does some real damage. In southern MO, a few old barns collapse and some cows die. Doesn’t make the news.</p>
<p>Husband woke up wondering why I was “wiggling the bed.” I slept through it here in West Michigan.</p>
<p>Woke up. Did not feel the earthquake nor the aftershock later.</p>
<p>Didn’t feel it at the University of Chicago, but we’re quite north of the epicenter, I believe.</p>
<p>I totally agree with the birds chirping really loudly…I pulled an all nighter because I had a final exam today and all night long the birds were chirping before the impact…</p>
<p>northwest side, Chicago</p>
<p>My cat was not asleep at my feet as usual–when I woke up.</p>
<p>i like earthquakes</p>
<p>D in St Louis felt it and woke up.Said it lasted about 20 seconds.They couldn’t get any local news till about 5:00a.m. their time defining what had happened. Sent me an email here in NY to reassure me all was ok. While talking to her at 11:20a.m. or so EST, they had a big aftershock, about 5-10 seconds long. She said there was one in between the first and the third one, not as strong as the third.</p>
<p>It’s interesting, because although we didn’t feel the earthquake on LI, the birds were chirping here last night too! I had to pick D up from school at midnight, and I noticed a lot bird chatter and found that very strange. I forgot all about it, until I read about the chirping birds on this thread.</p>
<p>Yeah, it could have been 1968. I remember being at EIU in Charleston for a school music thing and the water fountains were off (the town was under a boil water order.) I thought it was for my own school music thing, but if it was '68, it would have been my sister’s.</p>
<p>My parents now live on the other side of the state-in New Madrid fault territory. A few years ago, someone predicted that it was time for The Big One, so my parents got their “earthquake kit” together.</p>
<p>We’re about 300 miles away. I told H I thought it was a helicopter landing nearby. The dogs were barking frantically.</p>
<p>Midmo: I think you’re talking about Hurricane Gloria, September of 1985. We had four old and large oak trees fall in the woods around our house. Two of them actually touched the house with their top branches… One fell across the driveway. None was less than 18 inches in diameter. It cost some $$ to have the trees cut up and put out of the way, but we had fuel for the wood stove for three years. Another friend had an oak tree hit his house–several hundred thousand in repairs were required. </p>
<p>In 1991 Hurricane Bob caused a lot of damage on Cape Cod, including washing some houses away–one of them belonging to a friend’s parents.</p>
<p>In 1955, I nearly drowned in Hurricane Diane; I was one month old and my mother left me in the backyard in my bassinet… The water was several inches deep before she remembered me. (To be fair, the storm hit during my sister’s wedding and she was busy with a lot of things.)</p>
<p>Me, I’d rather be in an earthquake-prepped house (as I was in February of 2001 when the Nisqually Quake hit this area) than in a hurricane.</p>