Some people in western North Carolina felt the earth move
beneath them on Saturday during a 4.1 magnitude earthquake in Tennessee.
The earthquake struck Greenback, Tennessee, about 30 miles
south of Knoxville, just after 9 a.m.
On X, many users reported feeling shakes and rattles in western
North Carolina, and some felt it as far away as Atlanta.
Wendy Chirico lives in Deep Gap just outside of Boone. She
felt the quake and emailed WRALNews.
“I heard like my house make a little noise and said, ‘Okay, what is that,’” Chirico said.
She recalled seeing her home shake. Shortly after, a WRAL
alert came across her phone about the earthquake.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh… I wasn’t imagining that,’” Chirico
said.
Because we don’t have as many faults in the eastern U.S., seismic waves can travel farther and be felt across a wider distance.
WRAL News reached out to geophysicist Thomas Pratt, who coordinates
the eastern region’s earthquake hazards program.
Pratt said, fortunately, earthquakes in North Carolina are
not usually dangerous.
“In the four or 500 years we’ve got written records in the eastern U.S., there’s only been two quakes like this that have led to a more…
damaging earthquake,” Pratt said. “So it’s very very rare that they lead to
more damaging earthquakes.”
Another reason this earthquake only caused shaking and not
serious damage is because it was deep — about 15 to 16
miles below the earth’s surface