CHICAGO — Having grown up amid the Midwest's rolling farmland, Traci Hart and her family are used to weathering arctic-cold blizzards, rising floodwaters and powerful tornadoes.
But when the ground began to shake in the predawn hours Friday, the 40-year-old cafe owner from downstate Olney, Ill., fell out of bed in confusion. Her 13-year-old son told her that when he felt the vibrations, he "thought it was another meth lab blowing up."
Though the 5.2-earthquake that struck the heartland might elicit a yawn from temblor-savvy Californians -- they usually don't seek safety unless the magnitude inches closer to 6 -- out here folks already are calling it "the Big One."
The last quake of similar size to hit the area occurred in 1968, so many people weren't sure at first what was happening.
Tudy Teter, an office manager in Fort Wayne, Ind., blearily thought her bed was shaking because her cat was madly scratching itself. Margaret Gill, a retired church worker in Kirkwood, Mo., figured a storm was rolling into town. "When the bed started shaking, I thought, 'Wait, wind can't do that,' " Gill said.
Inexperience with this particular force of nature also meant not everyone knew what to do when the shaking started.
During an early morning broadcast at WHAS-TV in Louisville, Ky., listeners reportedly could hear one of the anchors yelling, "It's shaking in here!" At rival station WAVE-3 TV, meteorologist Kevin Harned yelled for his colleagues to take cover as he ducked to avoid the studio lights swinging wildly overhead.
"All morning, customers are arguing over whether we're supposed to run outside, or crouch next to a wall with the least amount of stuff hanging on it," said Hart, who owns Ophelia's Cup, less than 40 miles north of the quake's epicenter.
(If you're indoors when a quake hits, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, you should take cover under a sturdy piece of furniture, cover your face and stay away from glass and walls. If outdoors, move away from buildings and streetlights and stay in an open space until the shaking stops.)
The 4:37 a.m. quake, which caused little damage and no serious injuries, was centered a few miles outside of Bone Gap, Ill., a farming hamlet near the Indiana border, said David Russ of the U.S. Geological Survey.
The initial quake and a handful of aftershocks occurred in the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone. Tremors were felt across 16 states, from Kansas east to Tennessee, according to the USGS.
