Neighbors describe feeling ‘massive tremor’ in south Charlotte. Did you feel anything?
Residents reported feeling an earthquake-like tremor in south Charlotte and parts of Union County on Wednesday morning, strong enough that one woman on NextDoor described it as “massive.”
“On NextDoor, it felt everyone in and around this neighborhood felt/heard something, but some are describing it more as an explosion?!” the resident of Cotton Stand Road posted. That is south of Ardrey Kell Road and the Ballantyne area.
“Weird ... I did feel/hear something,” a man replied. “Thought it was a truck.”
Martha Hall said she, too, “felt/heard the tremor or explosion in our home in the Waxhaw-Marvin area as did neighbors from miles around.
“There have been many posts from multiple neighborhoods in the area regarding this occurrence on Nextdoor,” Hall said in an email to The Charlotte Observer on Wednesday night. “Residents in the area would love to know what occurred.”
Valerie Snider told the Observer she felt and heard the tremor about 10:15 a.m. at her home that backs up to New Town Road in the Waxhaw-Marvin area of Union County.
“I thought a truck had an accident very near my house and lost whatever it was hauling,”Snider said in an email. “My neighbor immediately texted and asked if it was a truck or an earthquake.”
She said her husband’s office is just over the state line in Zimmer Business Park near U.S. 521.
“He said everyone came out of their buildings to see what happened,” Snider said.
And Kelly McGrath Scott said she and her husband felt the tremor at their house off Ardrey Kell Road.
“It was pretty powerful,” she said. “I immediately said that it sounded like an explosion. Our whole house shook.”
Other residents told the Observer they heard and felt a loud boom.
Susan White of Waxhaw said she “felt it in the floor this morning. I sent my son a text to ask him if he heard anything. It was like a huge tree had fallen.”
“Definitely felt the boom in Marvin today,” reported Lisa Windle. “I live off Marvin Road and it was loud.”
She said it felt the same as what she’s experienced at her office in Matthews, “which is near a rock quarry that sometimes does the same thing.”
And Alleigh Caudill said she and many of her neighbors off Henry Harris Road in Indian Land “were inquiring on their Facebook page about the ‘boom’ that shook our houses around 10:50(ish) this morning.”
The U.S. Geological Survey earthquake website listed no quake as having occurred Wednesday morning.
“Looking at the USGS earthquake page, there are no earthquakes detected for the Charlotte area today,” Sean Bemis, a research scientist in the Virginia Tech earthquake lab, told The Charlotte Observer.
“In the past week, it looks like there were a couple earthquakes detected near Chattanooga, a couple near Charleston, S.C., and a few really small quakes near Sparta,” Bemis said in an email. “None of those would have been large enough to be felt near Charlotte.”
Bemis said if it was an earthquake that someone felt as a “massive” tremor, he said ”it should have been detectable by enough seismographs to calculate a location.
“I would also suspect that it would have been felt by enough people that there would be quite a bit of chatter about it on Twitter,” he said.
Just three months ago, a powerful 5.1 magnitude earthquake jolted the Charlotte area, the strongest in 104 years, the Observer reported.
The Aug. 9 quake was centered a little over a mile south of Sparta, near the Virginia border.
North Carolina has no active fault zones, where fractures between blocks of rock can trigger earthquakes, according to the state Geological Survey.
“Earthquakes are more frequent in the western part of our state, but statewide they are relatively small, random and scattered events,” according to the Survey.
If you felt tremors in Charlotte on Wednesday, email reporter Joe Marusak at jmarusak@charlotteobserver.com or reach him on Twitter @jmarusak.
This story was originally published November 18, 2020 at 3:53 PM.