EXTRA: Earthquake?

Either I am very fortunate, or I am totally oblivious. I didn’t feel a thing.

I was awake until the early hours of Friday, writing copy and otherwise performing the tasks required to publish this site and its sister, The South Chicagoan.

So round about 4:36 a.m., I was asleep, and nothing around me jolted me out of my sleep. I didn’t learn about an earthquake until I awoke at about 7:30 a.m. and (first thing) turned on a television. Robin Meade of CNN Headline got to break the news to me, followed up by reports from Chicago’s WGN and WFLD.

As I look around my apartment, I see no evidence that anything unusual happened – certainly not the most intense earthquake to hit the Midwestern U.S. in decades.

But I don’t doubt that some people felt something. Reports of emergency calls from across Chicago (most just wanting to know what happened) were made to 9-1-1, and the shaking at the Sears Tower in downtown Chicago was so intense (moreso than the swaying that the building usually has due to high winds at 1,000 feet in the air) that officials felt the need to do a morning inspection for structural damage.

Reportedly, they found none.

This earthquake has the potential to unify the Midwest. It was felt in parts of all the states that comprise the old Three Eye League (Illinois, Indiana and Iowa), along with Wisconsin and Michigan, and some tremors were felt as far north as Ontario and as far south as Georgia.

At the very least, it ought to remind Chicagoans that our city is very much a part of the Midwest, and not some isolated island in a sea of corn and soybean fields.

So I am going to consider myself and my fellow Chicagoans lucky that we are not having to cope with a disaster Friday that costs us our livelihoods. My sympathies go out to all those who do, particularly those in Southern Illinois near West Salem (which was the epicenter of the earthquake that registered a 5.2 on the Richter scale).

I’m sure April 18, 2008, will become one of those dates they will never forget.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: Here are a few sites to check if one wants serious details about the earthquake or its aftermath:

Chicago Tribune – Downstate earthquake rattles people awake across Chicago area
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-earthquake-webapr19,0,6535454.story

CNN – Midwest earthquake felt far and wide
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/18/illinois.earthquake/index.html

Southern Illinoisan – the major daily newspaper for the earthquake epicenter
http://www.southernillinoisan.com/