Shake and Blow

Update: Hurricane Irene reached category 3 strength overnight Tuesday and is holding a track that takes it up the U.S. East Coast. 

The East Coast got rattled by an earthquake on Tuesday, but that may turn out to just be the beginning of a bad week.

As resident of earthquake central, I both sympathize and roll my eyes (TPM has a nice running account of the inflated reaction.)  Quakes do shake you up, and they are all different--though I did hear descriptions that remind me of the only non-California quake I've experienced, when I was watching TV in a college student union in Illinois where I was visiting, and I felt somebody grab the back of my chair and pull it sharply back.  But noone was there.  And a second later, the TV announcement of a quake from the New Madrid fault, which I soon learned is a very big fault indeed.

Unlike CA where our quakes come largely from lots of plates rubbing, the eastern half of North America is all one big solid plate, and (as several seismologists put it) a quake there is like ringing a bell--it reverberates a long way.

But there were no reported injuries and so far not much damage.  Things might be different by next week, though.  Hurricane Irene is heading north over very warm waters.  Predicted to be a category 3 or higher at its height, its track could take it across the North Carolina Outer Banks and up to Washington and New York, and even New England.  Stay tuned.