West Tennesseans React to Overnight Earthquake
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LAKE COUNTY, Tenn. — Some West Tennesseans said they are in shock after their homes rattled early Monday morning when a minor earthquake shook part of our area. The 3.1 magnitude earthquake struck around 1:25 Friday morning. The epicenter was about 20 miles northwest of Dyersburg near the small town of Ridgely in Lake County. “I ’bout fell out the chair; it just scared me to death,” Ridgely resident Jeremiah Johnson said. A beam in Johnson’s home is cracked after the earthquake rattled the town. He said his floors moved in a ripple effect. “All we could hear is just a loud bang and it felt like a loud vibration, next it’s like a wave in the ocean and it’s building up and just rocked the whole house. It just caught us off guard,” Johnson said. About a mile down the road, Carl Bennet said the earthquake shook him out of bed. “When it first happened I thought it was a loud clap of thunder,” Bennet said. Bennet’s neighbor Shane Mauldin has a similar story. “I was in the bed and you could hear pictures on the wall rattling,” Mauldin said. According to the United States Geological Survey, a 3.1 magnitude earthquake was recorded 5 miles southeast of Ridgely. Mauldin said with the New Madrid Fault line so close, he sometimes worries about earthquakes, and how he and his family have little time to prepare. “We don’t get no warning is the thing. Like, with a tornado you get a warning a little ahead of time, but with an earthquake there’s no warning,” Mauldin said. Others said they only worry about it when it happens. “It scares me, you know? But there’s nothing you can do about it,” Bennet said. West Tennessee is considered a hazardous zone for earthquakes since the New Madrid Fault is under the thick mud of the Mississippi River. About 200 small earthquakes happen along the fault every year. Most of them are too weak to feel.
