West Tennesseans report feeling tremors after early morning earthquake

DYERSBURG, Tenn. — Feeling shaken up? You’re not the only one. Many residents in West Tennessee woke up to an early morning earthquake.

A 3.7 magnitude earthquake shook Dyersburg and several parts of West Tennessee at 6 a.m. Wednesday morning.

“I felt the earthquake, and I live near the downtown area. When I first felt the earthquake, I was laying in bed, but I woke up immediately,” Dyersburg resident Cynthia Cole-Pearson said.

“I was so nervous! I mean, goodness you sit up in the bed, and you’re in your deepest sleep,” Dyersburg resident Ashley Nolen said.

Nolen thought it was her house settling, while others thought it was something else.

“It felt too shaky, it felt a little rough for a dump truck. We went ahead and got on up and we still didn’t know what it was,” Dyersburg resident Trudy LaPorter said.

“All the sudden, I felt the whole house shake and I just stood there and it kinda scared me a little bit, but you know, I didn’t think anything of it. I thought it was a big plane,” Dyersburg resident Candy Fincher said.

However, not everyone knew what was shaking.

“We’ve got some calls from residents that didn’t know what it was. Some thought it could’ve been a wreck or this or that, but we have no reports of damage,” Sheriff Jeff Box said.

No damage and no reported injuries came from that earthquake, but the effects were felt across the entire region.

Sheriff Box says when there’s an earthquake to get into an open area if you can and to stay alert.

Earthquakes that occur in the New Madrid Seismic Zone potentially threaten parts of eight states. Those are Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Tennessee.