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Earthquake swarm rumbles through Manhattan over weekend

Residents share stories from weekend quake-swarm
Posted at 10:00 PM, Aug 05, 2019
and last updated 2019-08-06 16:25:14-04

More than a dozen small earthquakes in just three days has many in Manhattan wondering, why so many?

For the folks who live here in Manhattan, earthquakes aren’t that out of the ordinary but around 15 different earthquakes on Saturday and at least two on Sunday, that’s a lot and many are scratching their heads.

“It’s just a big explosion, almost like, so it’s very scary,” says Wilma Vanderby, who has lived in Manhattan since 1975.

Vanderby hoped all she would have to deal with was Friday night’s thunderstorm.

“It started Friday night with a thunderstorm,” she says. “[The lightning] just cracked so bad that it just hurt my ears.”

She says the next day, the ground started to shake.

“Two o’clock was the first earthquake which was 3.5, I think, and then from then on, about every hour and a half to two hours,” Vanderby says.

The tremors wouldn’t stop.

Vanderby says she felt more that night into Sunday.

‘I was awake most of the night and then I think we had another big one around 5:36,” she says.

Still, Vanderby says she’s not all that worried. That magnitude of earthquake is only about a small rumble.

That many close together, though, has others in town wondering what happened.

“Everything is shaking but nothing falling off of the shelves or anything,” says Crystal Browning, who also felt the tremors while she worked.

Browning has lived in Manhattan for 15 years.

Like Vanderby, this amount of rumbles was new to her.

“Just little rumbles here and there. Feels like a freight train coming your way,” Browning says. “I’ve seen a lot of activity on Facebook.”

Both say, like others, they aren’t too worried.

Browning says the town is close to a fault line.

And with another earthquake being recorded by the US Geologic Service at 1:40 pm on Monday, they want to know when the next tremor might head their way.

“What’s going to happen next?” Vanderby asks. “You know, with the storm, you know when they are going to come, kind of, but with an earthquake, you’re just kind of on pins and needles.”

Thankfully, there have been no reports of damage or injuries.