Triangle wakes up to confirmed 5.1 magnitude earthquake with ripples felt across NC
The U.S. Geological Survey confirmed a 5.1 magnitude earthquake Sunday morning, with an epicenter in Sparta, NC., and felt throughout the Raleigh region, Charlotte and other states including South Carolina.
Sunday’s earthquake is the largest in North Carolina since 1916, when a 5.2 magnitude quake hit Skyland in Buncombe County.
The earthquake happened at 8:07 a.m. on the border of North Carolina and Virginia near the town of Sparta, said Randy Baldwin, a geophysicist with the National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado.
“This earthquake was a magnitude of 5.1 on a 10-point scale,” Baldwin told The News & Observer Sunday. “The information center received more than 6,000 reports of the earthquake in a 200-mile radius that touches seven states.”
By 2 p.m. the number of earthquake reports climbed to 90,000 and were spread over a broader section of the Southeast, according to the USGS.
Those closest to the epicenter reported strong to very strong shaking, while others further away reported weak to light shaking.
Callie Carson was making biscuits and eggs in a 27-foot camper on her farm in the Piney Creek community, which is just west of Sparta in Alleghany County.
The farm is about five miles from the earthquake’s epicenter.
Carson was telling her 2-year-old son not to drink the jam as the entire camper started to rumble, she said.
Carson, 37, a field representative for the N.C. Farm Bureau Federation, lives in Taylorsville, but her husband and two children often spend weekends on their 180-acre farm.
The movement felt like experiencing choppy waves while riding in a small boat versus what she expected, which had been more like someone shaking up a box.
“It was kind of unnerving,” she said.
At first she thought the barn that they camp beside was falling in, she said.
Then she thought it must be a dump truck driving up their gravel road, she said. Next, she thought the camper was rolling down a hill.
Her husband, who was still in bed, asked if the boys were jumping in the camper. Then he ran outside and the couple realized the shaking was occurring on solid ground.
“My husband and I looked at each other and said, ‘Was that an earthquake?’” she said.
“There is no way there was an earthquake up here. That’s just not logical,” she said. “2020 has defied all innate logic, so why not an earthquake. Why not.”
The earthquake, which lasted about 10 seconds or so, rattled the dishes Carson set out and opened one cabinet, but they haven’t found any damage after checking cows and fences.
Later in the day, Carson said they were concerned the earthquake caused some cracks on parts of a bridge that serves as the main access to their farm.
Carson spoke to her two brothers and mom, who live in Ashe County. They felt the earthquake, but none reported damage, Carson said.
Carson’s sister, Megan Lyon, 36, lives in the community of Ennice which is east of Sparta and about 10 miles away from the epicenter of the earthquake.
The earthquake woke Lyon up, and she said she thought her 11-year-old son was shaking the bed until he came running into the bedroom. Then she realized it was likely an earthquake, as some had reported the day before.
Lyon said it felt like she was standing right next to a train track as the train rattles by on the tracks.
“We found a few things had fallen off some shelves,” Lyon said. “That was all we had.”
Sparta Town Manager Ryan Wilmoth said county and city officials declared a state of emergency around 3 p.m. Sunday.
The reports of damage, which are spread throughout Alleghany County, have included residential structural damage, chimneys collapsing and a town water main break.
There have been reports of “very minor injuries,” he said. “We are still evaluating, and that is going to be a couple days process,” he said.
The Food Lion in Sparta experienced some damage, wrote spokesperson Kelly Powell in an email.
The company is working with its landlord to assess the damage, she wrote.
“We are currently assessing the damage to determine when we can safely open to serve our neighbors in the Sparta community,” Powell wrote.
Be prepared for aftershocks
“There is a good chance there will be aftershocks,” said geophysicist Randy Baldwin, which can sometimes continue for a week or two and generally diminish over time.
The chance of an earthquake with a magnitude of 3 or higher is 58% and one that is 5 or higher is 5%, according to the USGS. The chance of one with a magnitude of 6 or higher is 1 in 200, according to the USGS.
Over the past day there were several foreshocks that were smaller and felt within 15 miles of where the earthquake occurred. An earthquake with a magnitude of 2.6 was reported around 2 a.m. in the Sparta area, according to the USGS.
“Now you get earthquakes all the time,” he said. “You get them anywhere and you get them fairly frequently in the southeast margins of the mountains there.
“Earthquakes are common, but getting the sizable ones are not quite as common,” Baldwin said.
There was a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Louisa, Virginia, in 2011; and 4.2 magnitude in eastern Kentucky in 2012.
The Virginia earthquake was the largest to shake the eastern U.S. since 1944, according to the N.C. Geological Survey report. There were reports of minor injuries, power outages, and $15 million in minor and major private property damage.
Twenty-two earthquakes in North Carolina between 1735 and 2014 have caused damage, according to the report.
What causes an earthquake?
In general, an earthquake occurs when two blocks of the Earth suddenly slip past one another, according to the USGS. The area where the slip occurs is called the fault.
Sometimes an earthquake’s mainshock, the main earthquake, is preceded by foreshocks and followed by aftershocks.
Regarding Sunday’s earthquake, Baldwin pointed to the aging mountains along the Appalachian front.
“They are old mountains,” Baldwin said. “They were formed a long time ago by faulting. And these faults ... they get reactivated every now and again. The stresses build up and reactivate some of these old faults.”
Seismic instruments, which respond to ground motions, indicate the earthquake started at a depth of about 2.3 miles, according to a USGS news release. The agency said there is a low likelihood of casualties or damage from this earthquake.
A 5.1 magnitude earthquake is considered a mild to moderate earthquake, strong enough to cause minor damage to buildings and other structures.
The National Weather Service started receiving reports from downtown Raleigh, Cary, Southern Pines and Aberdeen, around 8:08 Sunday morning, said James Danco, a meteorologist.
Reaction to NC’s earthquake
Moments after the earthquake rattled the state, social media lit up with accounts of shakes, jolts and vibrations — and in some cases, laments that the historic event had been completely missed.
Early reactions on social media included dismay that North Carolina was dealing with yet another calamity.
“All in one week North Carolina has been hit by an earthquake, hurricane, and tornado while a pandemic is sweeping the state,” tweeted Ted Corcoran, @RedTRaccoon.
Another user, with the Twitter handle @vicster, tweeted in allcaps: “I DID NOT UPROOT MY LIFE AND MOVE 3,000 MILES TO GET HEAT/HUMIDITY, HURRICANES AND STILL HAVE EARTHQUAKES. PICK TWO, SATAN. YOU ONLY GET TWO.”
The Twitter account for Johnson Lambe Sporting Goods store in Raleigh tweeted: “2020 wins!!! We just had a frickin earthquake in N.C. Pretty sure we are just missing locusts at this point.”
Other North Carolinians, including ABC11 meteorologist Brittany Bell, missed the whole thing.
“Well I slept through that quake,” Bell tweeted.
A user named @NathanMooney tweeted: “Slept thru earthquakes in California and I’ll sleep through them in NC. Come at me earth.”
Hayes Permar (@DHPIV) was happy to learn the jolt he felt was an earthquake. “I’m actually relieved it was an earthquake. Wife and I are in a basement bedroom in a cabin (alone) and thought someone had walked in uninvited. That (expletive) would have been way scarier,” he wrote.
A couple of hours after the quake, photos depicting damage in and around Sparta were shared on Twitter.
Susanna Black, a journalist with WSOC-TV in Charlotte, shared video footage from a surveillance camera inside a hair salon in Sparta which showed the power of the quake as it happened.
Black also tweeted photos from the Food Lion in Sparta and from a convenience store there. The ceiling of the Food Lion appeared to have collapsed in one spot, and items from shelves at both stores were strewn in the aisles.
Chad Tucker, a journalist at WGHP, a Fox affiliate in Greensboro, posted photos of damage from inside a home in Sparta, where cabinet doors stood open and glassware was shown shattered on the floor in multiple room of the home. Later, Tucker posted video of a waterline break that buckled a roadway in Sparta.
This story was originally published August 9, 2020 at 8:34 AM with the headline "Triangle wakes up to confirmed 5.1 magnitude earthquake with ripples felt across NC."
