5.8-Magnitude Earthquake Rattled Maryland 10 Years Ago

MARYLAND — A 5.8-magnitude earthquake rattled Maryland in the early afternoon of Aug. 23, 2011, sending people fleeing from their office buildings across the region wondering if a terrorist attack or something else had happened.

The 10-year anniversary of the strongest earthquake ever recorded in Maryland and the strongest temblor recorded east of the Rocky Mountains since 1944 is bringing back memories of shaking buildings and brief moments of fear and uncertainty.

The earthquake, which lasted just under a minute, caused cracks in the foundations of homes. Heavier damage was reported closer to the epicenter of the quake in the town of Mineral, Virginia, about halfway between Charlottesville and Fredericksburg.

The earthquake struck a few minutes before 2 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 23. Office buildings in the Baltimore-D.C. area began to sway and chairs began to shake. People asked each other if they felt the shaking and once they realized what was happening, many evacuated and move away from their buildings in case debris started to fall.

"Stuff fell from the ceiling," said Maria Stark, an Under Armour employee from Ellicott City who was in her office in the Tide Point area on Baltimore's Inner Harbor. She told Patch in 2011 there were two shakes and after the second one, a supervisor ordered employees out. She said she thought, "'I'm getting out of Dodge."

All Maryland State Police barracks reported feeling the quake, a rare occurrence in the Mid-Atlantic.

Across Maryland, residents of Columbia, College Park, Hyattsville, Catonsville, Montgomery County, Eldersburg, Sykesville and other areas reported feeling the quake.

Hillary Pennington, a Catonsville resident, said ]in 2011 she was at home with her children and made them stand under an archway.

Her son, Blake, asked her if another planet "just bumped into ours."

In Prince George's County, the earthquake sent students flooding outside after schools were evacuated. There were reports of structural damage at buildings in College Park, Hyattsville and Oxon Hill.

"I was in Shoppers (grocery store) in Eldersburg when the earthquake hit and the shelves shook," said Eldersburg resident and Patch contributor George Welty. "It was scary. I thought someone was on the other side pushing them over."

The earthquake was felt from Maryland to the Midwest to New York City to Canada and is believed to have been felt by more people than any other quake in U.S. history. In the decade since the earthquake, the Los Angeles area of California, a region known for regular seismic activity, has not experienced a quake at a magnitude close to the one felt by people in Maryland, Virginia and D.C.

Cell phone service was disrupted in the hours after the quake, from D.C. to New York City. Telecom companies said their networks had not suffered any structural damage, but that heavy call volume was disrupting service for some customers.

In the D.C. area, the 5.8-magnitude quake, which was initially measured as a 5.7-magnitude quake, caused damage to iconic buildings, including the Washington Monument and Washington National Cathedral. No deaths or serious injuries were reported from the temblor.

In May 2014, almost three years after the earthquake, the National Park Service reopened the Washington Monument to visitors after conducting $15 million in repairs caused by the earthquake. The monument, though, would be plagued by problems in the years after its reopening.

The earthquake caused $34 million in damage to Washington National Cathedral. In the decade since Aug. 23, 2011, the National Cathedral has conducted about $15 million in work, with completion of repairs expected to take at least another decade. The cathedral is hoping to raise another $18 million as part of its restoration work.

The earthquake, with an epicenter in central Virginia, occurred less than six months after the devastating earthquake and tsunami that crippled Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear station. The Japanese disaster caused public interest in nuclear power safety to intensify.

What are your memories of the Aug. 23, 2011, earthquake? Share them in the comments section.