An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 4.7 shook parts of the Bay Area early this morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Many in Palo Alto and East Palo Alto who also felt the jolt took to social media with their reactions.
The quake, which has since been scaled down to a magnitude 4.4, was reported around 2:40 a.m. on the Hayward Fault and had a depth of roughly 8 miles, according to the USGS. Its epicenter was near the Claremont Hotel & Spa about 1.9 miles east-southeast of Berkeley, 4.3 miles north of Oakland and 11.2 miles east-northeast of San Francisco.
A Palo Alto police and fire dispatcher said the emergency dispatch center received multiple calls from people asking if there was an earthquake, but no reports of injuries or damage as of about 3 a.m.
The Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority plans to run routine system checks through its system in response to the quake and advised commuters of minor delays.
People who felt the temblor in Palo Alto and East Palo Alto took to Twitter this morning with their reactions. Many estimated the quake lasted a few seconds and was strong enough to shake up their homes. One user reported feeling the jolt from the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford newborn nursery.
There was also another earthquake with a magnitude of 2.6 shortly after 3:30 a.m. about 1.9 miles west of Cupertino, 4.3 miles north-northwest of Saratoga and 4.3 miles south-southwest of Sunnyvale, USGS officials said.
This story will be updated as more information becomes more available.
Yes, I felt a tremor go through my home and that woke me up as well and so also others in the household. My clock showed 2.45am (but it is a couple of mins fast).
We live in Menlo Park and felt the earthquake. It woke me up.
My cousin in FL said it snowed there and they don’t have any snowplows to clear the roads, so guess no matter what part of the country you’re in, it’s always something. 🙂
Time
2018-01-04 10:39:37 (UTC)
Location
37.861°N 122.242°W
Depth
13.0 km
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
I was dead asleep but it woke me up. Wonder how long it actually lasted. If this is merely a 4-ish, then imagine a 7 or 8 earthquake, which won’t merely be “twice” as big. Isn’t the Richter scale logarithmic, so that each “point” is 10 times as powerful as the next lower number?
It awakened us as well. My husband actually looked around the house because he felt that the noise was inside the house. He checked his phone and found news websites already mentioning the earthquake less than 15 minutes after we were awakened.
Dang, I missed it! But my daughter felt it, thought it was a dream, scared her. Supposedly lasted 5-10 seconds according to the LA Times.
Hopefully no trees, historic or iconic structures were damaged
I was sitting here typing a comment for the tax thread and felt the small jolts for 2 or 3 seconds. Unmistakably an earthquake, but not long enough to react. Switched on KCBS and they reported it within 2 minutes, airing phone calls from the east bay. Hard to believe “the big one” was almost 30 years ago. I guess @Barron Park dad was not around for that — alarming to get dead-air across the entire AM radio band.
I felt it. It was probably closer to ten seconds than five.
Actually, it was the noise that woke me up, and then the shaking…I was lying in bed and opening my eyes, thinking that I was too tired to go duck and cover, and it wasn’t really that bad. Then it stopped!
I wonder what retail stores raised the prices of Earthquake Kits today?
Musical,
I remember that same feeling when we turned on KCBS and heard nothing after Loma Prieta in ’89. We were at work trying to figure out how bad it was–that was all that we needed to know that that had been a *big* one.
Last night–I slept through the whole thing.