News
3.5 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Athens County
By: WOUB Staff Writer
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At approximately 1 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, a 3.5 magnitude earthquake hit Athens County, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The epicenter of the quake was about 2.5 miles east-southeast of Nelsonville and nine miles from downtown Athens, according to the report.
"I was at the library," Katie Lienesh, an OU senior, told WOUB. "I thought it was something with construction. I just heard the ground shake…I didn't know it was an earthquake, but now that makes more sense."
"I was sitting at a desk in Bromley [Hall]," OU senior Stefano Geary said. "I felt the whole building shake."
"My neighbors upstairs are really loud and they drop things…the walls shake and the ceiling shakes sometimes and we always assume it's them," OU senior Sarah Barclay said. "I was sitting on my bed and I noticed a feelable shake of my bed."
Wednesday's earthquake is the strongest recorded in Athens County since a 3.8 hit near New Marshfield in 1886.
"I thought something dropped on to our roof," OU-Lancaster Budget Manager Gwen Whitehead told OU-L. "My computer monitor was really shaking." Lancaster Dean Jim Smith was sitting at his desk when the quake happened.He said he felt his desk move.
“It was a little freaky,” Kim Preston Coy, who works on the third floor of Oakley Hall at Hocking College, told the Athens Messenger. “Nobody else felt it except for one other person, but my stuff was shaking. It shook the whole building.”
WOUB will have updates as the story progresses.