At 10:23 a.m. on Friday people across Long Island and as far away as Albany and Pennsylvania reported feeling buildings shake and sway slightly, the result of an earthquake that registered 4.8 on the Richter scale in New York and New Jersey.
The quake, according to the United States Geological Survey, was centered about seven kilometers north of Whitehouse Station, N.J., at a depth of 4.7 kilometers. It registered 2.8 on the Richter scale at a seismic monitoring station at Napeague, according to the U.S.G.S.
At The East Hampton Star building on Main Street, it was felt as a subtle shaking, just slightly more intense than a series of heavy trucks passing by. On Railroad Avenue, Amanda Star Frazer, an attorney with Esseks, Hefter, Angel, Di Talia & Pasca, was at her office in a two-story brick building when "the whole building shook," she said. "It started feeling wobbly." No sooner had she called out to ask a colleague if she had felt it, too, than the colleague herself yelled out, " 'Did we just have an earthquake?!' "
Reports poured in as well from people on Shelter Island and Montauk and across the region, with those living in western Suffolk describing a more intense experience.
In Montauk, two employees of the Montauk Historical Society, Ariana Garcia-Cassani and Claire Hunter, were at Fisher House when they felt the quake. "We looked up with each other and for a second thought it was the wind. But we were on the first floor and the ground is concrete," Ms. Garcia-Cassani said. "It lasted maybe seven seconds."
In Hampton Bays, Gail Baranello “was in my house and first was aware of the noise and a rattling that I assumed was a plane or truck, but it wasn’t going away, and then I got really dizzy and the house was completely shaking for like 10 seconds.”From Islip someone wrote: "It felt like a giant shook the building like a snowglobe."
An organic chemistry lecture was paused at Stony Brook University while the Javits Lecture Hall shook, causing the overhead projector to wobble and shake. Lauren Fanter, a student who was in a residence hall when the earthquake struck noticed the fire alarm making a different alert than usual. "It went 'ding' and then dinged a second time before it started talking," she said.
This is a developing story that will be updated as more information becomes available.
With Reporting by Carissa Katz, Christopher Gangemi, Durell Godfrey, Bess Rattray, and Christine Sampson
