Geologist: Shaking Wasn't Florida Earthquake
Posted: 12:12 pm EDT March 18, 2011Updated: 7:06 pm EDT March 18, 2011
PALM COAST, Fla. -- Investigators are trying to solve a bizarre mystery in Flagler County. A wave of people called 911 around 9:30am Friday to report the ground shaking in Flagler County. The calls all came from the Hammock area of Palm Coast
(see map).However, people in the north Daytona area, as well as in Deltona and as far north as St. Augustine, said they felt it as well. Many people were worried that the shaking was an earthquake.The Emergency Management Office was on the phone all day trying to figure out the cause of the shaking. Residents said that buildings were shaking, and even a dispatcher in the county felt it happen."I live alone and I'm blind, and a while ago the house was shaking, do you happen to know?" a caller asked a 911 dispatcher."I'm not sure. We're actually getting quite a few calls about it now. We're having someone check it out, OK?" the dispatcher said.The 911 call was one of about a dozen calls that poured into Flagler County. An unexplained phenomenon, described as everything from a low rumble to a window shaking movement, rattled residents from St. Augustine to the Volusia County."The ground rumbled and the building rumbled. Definitely abnormal for here," a resident told WFTV.WFTV found at least two people who have experienced sonic booms and earthquakes from their time spent in California."That's what it felt like. It definitely felt like an earthquake," one resident said. "Enough to make you look to the ocean and say, 'OK, what's next, tsunami?' Because you're going, 'Is it an earthquake or not?'"The U.S. Geological Survey told Flagler County that sensors in Georgia and Orlando picked up no movement. The National Weather Service reported nothing odd, and the Navy and Coast Guard told WFTV they had no information regarding on or offshore bombing exercises."We are checking with all the agencies that monitor those kinds of things and hopefully we'll come up with an answer, but right now, we're kind of perplexed," an official told WFTV.Everything, from a meteor burning up to a moon phase that allows ocean waves to hit hard enough to vibrate the shoreline, is being considered as a cause.
