Centered near the town of Mineral, Va., the quake rocked communities from Georgia to Canada. With an estimated 5.8 magnitude, it marked the most powerful temblor on the East Coast in 114 years and the third-strongest on record.
To quake veterans, it may have been little more than a stiff breeze: buildings did not collapse, roads did not buckle, no serious injuries were reported.
But it was a sense of the unfamiliar that shook so many and sent tens of thousands of people streaming into the afternoon sun.
The Comcast Center dismissed its employees for the day. Phillies executives briefly fled Citizens Bank Park. Thousands of workers filed from government complexes in Doylestown, Media, and Camden. Parts of the White House, Capitol, and Pentagon were evacuated.
In Harrisburg, Trisha Graham, deputy press secretary for Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, had been sitting in her state Capitol office when she saw the enormous brass chandeliers swaying as if ghosts were riding them.
Then the floor started vibrating.
"It almost felt [as if] you were on a roller coaster sitting down," Graham said.
About 180 miles away, customers at a Wawa in Sea Isle City clung to store shelves to steady themselves. Along the coast, the sand wiggled like Jell-O.
"The lifeguards jumped out of their stands because the stand was shaking," Al Battaglia said as he left a Ventor beach.
Not everyone felt it, or believed.
"We were at the top of the Rocky steps at the Art Museum and didn't feel a thing," said Giovanni Tecce, an executive accounting firm worker who was taking his relatives on a tour of the city.
Wyncote author Charles Fishman said he was at the Philadelphia International Airport, ready to board a flight for Dallas, when the concrete walls and pillars began to shake noticeably. He turned to the flight attendant.
