Fairfielders Feel Effects of Virginia Quake

FAIRFIELD, Conn.—Peter Trivalas, Doug Wright and Natalie Gustafson sat in the same Fairfield office Tuesday afternoon. But the three could not agree what they felt just before 2 p.m. 

As tremors from the 5.9-magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia rolled up the East Coast, Triavlas and Wright felt the ground shake, but thought it was just vibrations from the nearby train tracks. Gustafson, however, swears she felt nothing.

“It was very gentle,” said Trivalas. “It felt like a train going by. Then all of a sudden my Facebook filled up.”

According the U.S Geological Survey, the earthquake struck at 1:51 p.m. Its epicenter was Mineral, Va., a town of 424 people located about 90 miles southwest of Washington. Though the shocks started about 375 miles away from Fairfield, whether or not you could feel the effects in the Fairfield area depends on who you ask.

Stories like the one above are all over the area Tuesday afternoon. Carolyn Weverbergh didn’t notice any shakes at the time. Meanwhile, her mother Maryann wondered why the chair was shaking at her doctor’s appointment.

“I honestly thought, ‘Is there something underneath the chair?’” Maryann said. “I didn’t know what was happening.”

Christine Herman said she felt nothing while she spent her afternoon in Fairfield Center. But around 2 p.m. she got a frantic call from her daughter in Westport, telling her that her whole house was shaking. “She said the house was shaking,” Herman said. “The chandelier was swinging, so it must have been pretty intense there.”

Gustafson, who used to live in San Francisco, noted that a strong tremor in this area could be dangerous because “nobody knows what to do in an earthquake here." If one should strike the area again, the Federal Emergency Management Agency offers some recommendations.

 If inside, you should drop to the ground and try to take cover under a sturdy table or desk, and stay away from glass or loose structures. If outside, you should stay outdoors and keep away from trees and buildings.

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