Steve Quayle News Alerts

April 29, 2003
By Mark Niesse, Associated Press Writer

FORT PAYNE -- A rare Southern earthquake rattled windows, broke dishes and cracked foundations as people awakened nervously to shaking homes from western North Carolina to south Alabama early Tuesday, but there were no reports of serious damage or injuries.

The 4.9 magnitude quake, matching the largest ever recorded in Alabama, was centered near Fort Payne in northeast Alabama close to the Georgia line. Recorded around 4 a.m. CDT, it was felt in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Mississippi, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

“We have cracked foundations, a trailer off its foundation, tools off the wall, that kind of thing,” said Susan Battles of the DeKalb County emergency management office in Fort Payne.

“I sat straight up in my bed,” said Lucille Simpson, working at a Citgo store at Fort Payne that had bottles and cans knocked off shelves. “My husband said, ‘That’s a tornado,’ but I said, ‘No. That’s an earthquake.”’

“Everybody else, they thought it was an airplane or a bomb,” she said.

Emergency management officials said there were scattered power outages but most people experienced minor damage to dishes and pictures knocked off walls.

At Anniston, about 50 miles south of Fort Payne, Army officials said the quake appeared not to cause any problem at a depot where Cold War-era chemical weapons are stored in more than 150 bunkers awaiting incineration. A statement from the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency said the bunkers are designed to withstand much stronger shocks and there is no danger to nearby communities.

Tim Long, a seismologist at Georgia Tech, said the northeast Alabama area experienced a “fore shock” of about 2 magnitude around noon Monday. “This is a reminder more than anything else that the Southeast Tennessee seismic zone is active,” he said.

Butch Kinerney, a spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Va., said the last earthquake reported in the region was on Dec. 8, 2001, with a magnitude of 3.9 towards the Huntsville area. “At 4.9, you’re getting into good shaking territory,” Kinerney said.

“I thought somebody had run through my trailer,” said James Samples of Sylvania.

“I think everbody in Crossville called,” said police dispatcher Al Clemons. “I didn’t keep count but we have 1,400 people here and I think every one called.”

The largest earthquake ever recorded in Alabama was magnitude 4.9 in 1997, centered in south Alabama’s Escambia County. Long said the last time Georgia had an earthquake of this size was a 4.4 magnitude quake in Tyrone in 1964.

Kinerney said the Tuesday morning quake was centered near a stretch of Interstate 59 that crosses through northeast Alabama, the northwest tip of Georgia and into Chattanooga, Tenn.

“That area between Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia has been subject to a handful of small earthquakes over the last century,” he said. “There is a small plate that runs a diagonal line... almost the same as I-59 does. There have been some very small earthquakes but nothing significant, so it is pretty unusual,” Kinerney said.

In Atlanta, about 160 miles away, the 5 a.m. quake moved dishes and pictures on shelves. Residents said it lasted about 45 seconds.

“My whole house shook, I could feel the whole wave go north to south,” said Barry Goodno, a Georgia Tech structural engineering professor who specializes in earthquakes. “Everything was rattling through the room. It was not what I expected in Georgia.”

“It’s the kind of motion that could weaken structures or cause further damage,” Goodno said. “It’s not something to be overlooked. This could be a precursor, it could be a one-time release of energy, it could be an indication of things to come for several weeks.”

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