Published: December 21, 2006 10:21 am      

'Earthquake swarm' strikes Mid-Del area

Two low-magnitude earthquakes rocked Midwest City and the surrounding area Wednesday night.

According to Jim Lawson of the Oklahoma State Geological Survey, a number of people heard and felt what he referred to as the “earthquake swarm” but no real damage has been reported.

“The first one was at 8:41 p.m. on the 20th. It was not very large in magnitude — 2.6. A thousand people must have heard it. We have over 200 reports on our Web site,” Lawson said. “A second hit around midnight with a magnitude of about 2.7.”

An administrator at the Oklahoma State Geological Survey said she lives in Midwest City but had not felt a thing.

“I didn’t feel anything, but, then, I’m so used to Tinker,” she said.

Lawson said some people hearing or feeling the earthquake while others do not is typical and he went onto describe some of the reports he had heard of.

“One man said he felt as if a truck hit his house. He went outside and saw all his neighbors standing outside and looking at their house,” Lawson said.

Other reports included a couple who had thought their dog had run into the back of their couch, small cracks, water in a fishbowl moving, a lamp falling over and a loud sound like a sonic boom.

“As a seismic wave passes, the ground vibrates up and down a few billionths of a meter,” Lawson said. “It works like a loudspeaker or you phone, vibrating and causing sound waves to go up in the air.”

Lawson said people hear it very quickly because the sound doesn’t travel from a distant point but instead from the ground directly around them when the wave passes through.

Del City Police Captain Jody Suit, said he heard the earthquake and that dispatchers had been inundated with calls.

“It sounded like something exploded outside and hit my house,” Suit said.

Suit, who lives three or four blocks from the intersection of I-40 and Sunnylane, said all areas of Del City reported hearing of feeling the first earthquake.

“It went clear to Douglas. I don’t know how far to Oklahoma City to the west. I heard the first one about 8:30 or a quarter to nine,” Suit said.

Though he didn’t hear the second earthquake, the police captain had one last tidbit to add.

“My brother just moved back from California. He thought it was an earthquake. I said, ‘We don’t have earthquakes here.’ He recognized it,” he said.

The two earthquakes were the seventh and eight in Oklahoma County in the last 29 years, according to Lawson. All have been small. In 1952, an earthquake registering 5.5 on the Richter scale hit Canadian County. It was registered in several states and in Oklahoma County, it left a 50-foot crack in the state capitol building.

“That’s the most Oklahoma County has ever been affected by an earthquake. There hasn’t been any in six hours. I don’t think you’ll have anymore,” Lawson said Thursday morning.