... and if California was still attached.

Was it good for you too?

Earthquake centered in Illinois rocks Indiana

Associated Press Report

INDIANAPOLIS — No significant damage has been reported in Indiana after an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.2 struck the Midwest Friday morning.

The quake just before 4:37 a.m. Central time was centered six miles from West Salem, Ill., and 45 miles from Evansville, Ind. It was felt in such distant cities as Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Des Moines, Iowa, 450 miles northwest of the epicenter.

"We have some minor reports of glass breakage and perhaps a mobile home may have come off its foundation," said Joe Wainscott Jr., executive director of the Indiana Department of Homeland Security.

Wainscott said some damage might not yet be apparent. Indiana Department of Transportation crews immediately began inspecting bridges and overpasses along such highways as Interstate 64 and U.S. 41 in southwestern Indiana, he said. He said as of midmorning the inspections were nearly completed and there were no reports of damage.

"The things on my curio were rattling and the water in the fish bowl was splashing," said Kelly Bolte, a waitress in Seymour, about 60 miles south of Indianapolis. "It felt like the dog was running through the house."

Indiana State Police spokesman Sgt. Todd Ringle from the Evansville post said he was shaken out of his bed. Another Evansville resident said he felt a rolling motion.

At Vincennes University, about 30 miles east of the epicenter, all five dormitories were evacuated as a precaution, sending nearly 1,500 students to an intramural field for an hour, said university spokesman Duane Chattin. The earthquake triggered the fire alarm in one residence hall, Chattin said. There was no damage or injuries reported on the campus, Chattin said.

The earthquake was felt across Indiana, shaking tall buildings and rattling windows in downtown Indianapolis.

It was felt as far as Kendallville, in the northeast corner of the state, about 250 miles from the epicenter.

"I was sitting at my computer," Kendallville resident Andrea Brand said. "The computer starting shaking and the desk started shaking. The whole house was shaking."

Scott Wilkerson, associate professor of geosciences at DePauw University in Greencastle, about 40 miles south Indianapolis, said he felt two episodes of shaking. He said that may represent two different seismic waves.

He said there likely will be some small aftershocks most of which people will not feel.

More Information

Biggest quakes by state
By The Associated Press

The U.S. Geological Survey says Friday's earthquake was generated by a northern branch of the New Madrid fault zone, the most seismically active in the country east of the Rockies. It produced a series of powerful quakes in 1811 and 1812 that were estimated at magnitude 7.0 or greater.

The most powerful New Madrid quakes since then for each state in the area:

Arkansas: 1843, magnitude 6.3 in northeast Arkansas that caused widespread damage but no serious injuries or deaths.

Illinois: 1968, a magnitude 5.3 quake in southern Illinois that led to scattered damage but neither serious injuries nor deaths.

Indiana: 1909, a 5.1 quake near Terre Haute that caused only minor damage.

Kentucky: 1980, a magnitude 5.2 quake near Maysville, about 100 miles northeast of Louisville, that was widely felt but caused only minor damage.

Missouri: 1895, magnitude 6.6 near Charleston in southeast Missouri; widespread property damage but no deaths reported.

Tennessee: 1865, a 5.0 near Memphis that caused only scattered damage.

Source: U.S. Geological Survey

Don't worry Jen, you're not the lone ranger. I didn't feel anything either.

I got a bad feeling about this.

Earthquake Rocks The Area

Laurie Wink
The News-Dispatch

MICHIGAN CITY - While some residents slept soundly, others were shaken awake at about 4:40 a.m. Friday by a 5.2 magnitude earthquake.

The quake originated in southern Illinois on the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone, which is near the New Madrid Seismic Zone that includes Indiana.

Earthquake tremors were felt up to 450 miles northwest of the epicenter, in Chicago, Milwaukee and Des Moines, Iowa.

Wilma Rister of Long Beach said her brother, who lives in Mount Carmel, Ill., 15 miles from the epicenter, had a curio cabinet open, spilling fine china onto the floor during the quake.

Rister woke up at about 4:40 a.m., when she felt her bed shaking. "I was sound asleep," Rister said. "It felt like someone was shaking me to wake me up, but nobody was in the house but me."

Rister said she went back to sleep. At 6 a.m. her sister called from Dilman, Ill., and said she felt the earthquake "quite strongly," Rister said.

Tom Collins, owner of Shear Illusions on U.S. 12, said he wasn't aware of the earthquake but his two cats certainly were. The cats are routinely kept in a separate room overnight.

"All of a sudden it sounded like they were flying off the walls," Collins said. "It's not something they normally experience. They reacted to what I didn't." Collins said a salon employee's cats reacted similarly.

Michigan City Assistant Police Chief John Kintzele said from the department's perspective, the earthquake was "a non-event."

"Officers noted they felt shaking," Kintzele said. "We didn't have a lot of alarms go off or anything."

Michigan City Mayor Chuck Oberlie said he woke up when he heard things rattling in a bedroom closet. "I'm usually a pretty good sleeper," he said. "I did actually sit up and try to figure out what was going on, but then I fell back to sleep."

Oberlie, like others, found out about the earthquake from the news media.

No major damage was reported in Indiana as a result of the quake. State transportation crews inspected bridges and overpasses early Friday but didn't find any damage.

Students at the University of Evansville were shaken by the quake, including freshman Steph-anie Lee, daughter of Kathy and Bob Lee of Michigan City. She called at 4:40 a.m. to say, "Mom, we're having an earthquake."

Kathy Lee, who is vice president of the Michigan City Area Schools Board, told her daughter, "We are, too." Stephanie Lee said students stayed in hallways of their residence halls until it was apparent that no serious damage had been done.

The five residence halls at Vincennes University were evacuated as a safety measure, according to a university spokesperson. The 1,500 students spent an hour on an intramural field. Other than a fire alarm being set off, no damage or injuries occurred on the campus, located about 30 miles from the earthquake epicenter.

Indiana has hundreds of earthquakes a year that are in magnitudes from 1.2 to 2.0, too low to be felt, according to earthquake specialist Phil Roberts. The New Madrid fault produced a series of earthquakes in 1811 and 1812 that reached an estimated magnitude of 7.0 or greater. The epicenter was in New Madrid, Mo.

Contact Laurie Wink at lwink@thenewsdispatch.com.

Strong Aftershock Reported Early Monday
WEST SALEM, Ill. (AP) -- The U.S. Geological Survey says it has recorded one of the strongest aftershock so far from Friday's Illinois earthquake.

Geologists say the temblor just before 12:40 a.m. Central time Monday, registered at 4.5 magnitude at its epicenter about 5 miles northwest of Mount Carmel, Illinois. The location is in the same area as Friday's early-morning 5.2-magnitude earthquake, which was followed by a 4.5 magnitude aftershock about 5 1/2 hours later.

The Monday morning aftershock was at least the 15th since Friday's quake.

"Nuclear Fueled Explosion Reported In US Midwest"

"by: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers April 18, 2008

Reports from 3rd Army Headquarters of the Russian Space Command, located in Solnechnogorsk (Moscow oblast), are reporting today that a ‘nuclear fueled’ explosion has occurred in the United States region of Illinois after the downing of an American B-52 Bomber by, presumed, other elements of the US Air Force operating in that region.

So powerful was the explosion reported from this downed American Nuclear Bomber that Western propaganda media sources are reporting the effects of a 5.2 to 5.4 magnitude earthquake in that region, but to which the most accurate description of a nuclear type blast was reported by the Bloomberg News Service and who stated in their article: "You could hear a roaring sound and the whole motel shook, waking up the guests,'' Vibha Ambelal, manager of the Super 8 Motel in Mount Carmel, Illinois, near the epicenter, said in a telephone interview."

These reports further state that this was the second attempt by a US B-52 Nuclear Bomber to penetrate the North American Command Air Defenses surrounding the dissident United States Scott Air Force Base, located in Illinois, from which these aircraft seeking to bomb Iranian atomic facilities are based at.

On Tuesday, April 15th, American citizens to the Indiana region immediately east of Illinois reported numerous ‘booms’ and ‘flashes’ in their night skies which some attributed to fireball meteorites crashing into the atmosphere, but which the United States Air Force reported was caused by F-16 jet fighters ‘sonic booms’ and their use of ‘military flares’.

These reports, however, state that this April 15th incident turned back the first abortive attempt by dissident American Forces to secret their plundered nuclear weapons out of that country for their intended use against Iran.

The ‘trigger’ to these latest desperate attempts to embroil the World in Total War arose from the US Defense Secretaries ordering of a full accounting of all American Nuclear Weapons on March 28th after the discovery of that an unspecified number of them were ‘missing’.

The first attempt to use these ‘missing’ nuclear weapons against Iran we had previously reported on in our April 5th report titled "US Nuclear B-1 Bomber On Iran ‘Attack Run’ Shot Down" and which occurred in the Middle Eastern Nation of Qatar.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman further report that the American War Leaders were warned this past week by the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and by Pope Benedict XVI, both of whom traveled to the United States this week, against the attempts by the US to escalate their conflicts into another World War, but which by these latest events these War Leaders appear not to have listened to.

As we have previously reported too, the United States believes it has no option other than Total World War as their economy continues imploding while at the same time fuel prices are rising to catastrophic levels and more food riots are being reported the World over, all of which when combined signal the collapse of the American Empire on a scale not seen in since the collapse of the former Soviet Union on June 12, 1990.

It remains, without doubt, that the people living within the United States will not be allowed to know the full evidence of these events, and their imminent destruction, except by the means of dissident sources of information such as ours. But, and most strangely, the New York Times, and a publication not known for the reporting of dissident news, appears to have changed its course with its April 6th article titled "Duck and Cover: It’s the New Survivalism", and which said:

"THE traditional face of survivalism is that of a shaggy loner in camouflage, holed up in a cabin in the wilderness and surrounded by cases of canned goods and ammunition.

It is not that of Barton M. Biggs, the former chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley. Yet in Mr. Biggs’s new book, “Wealth, War and Wisdom,” he says people should “assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.”

“Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food,” Mr. Biggs writes. “It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down.”

Survivalism, it seems, is not just for survivalists anymore."

This advice by the New York Times that the time has begun for Americans to begin their preparations for survival echo those of the giant US Banking concern Wells Fargo, that Britain’s Guardian News Service has recently reported warned these people: "Scott Anderson, chief economist at Wells Fargo, is equally pessimistic, describing the bullish views of some market players as "bordering on delusional", but which as their life savings continue to disappear they continue not to heed.

For the final outcome of these events we, perhaps, will have little warning, but, and surely anyone with open eyes can see, the storm clouds gathering on the horizon.

[link to www.whatdoesitmean.com]"

I know I am not the only one who enjoys some solid whackjob conspiracy...

About logarithmic scales: Each whole number increase is an increase by a factor of ten from the previous number. That means that the 5.0 is one hundred times a 3.0, not 1000x as reported above.

Regarding conspiracy theories, let's start a thread so we call ALL enjoy them!

Have any of you encountered people that were affected by the quake in a modified-memory way? Like people who now say they were thrown out of bed, or that kind of thing?