This morning's 5.2-magnitude earthquake- centered in southeastern Illinois- was the strongest quake along the New Madrid fault zone since 1968.I felt that 1968 5.5-magnitude quake here in Kansas City.
It was a Saturday and I was working a part-time job at an auto parts store on Truman Road west of Brooklyn. Darryl and I were doing an inventory of the store's automotive exhaust piping late that morning when it hit.
That part of the store had been added- with a simple concrete-slab poured on
I was sitting on a new car battery box with a clipboard when the box and I started rolling side to side. All those steel tailpipes in their racks to the ceiling- some as long as 10 feet- were rattling as if someone were shaking those 4 rows of racks.
Darryl- standing and reading off part numbers to me- started swaying as if drunk- he had to hold on the the racks on both sides briefly. Just as soon as this weird carnival ride started- it stopped.
We looked at each other with surprise- both thinking and saying "Earthquake?" I rushed to the front of the store- the older part of the store with a basement underneath.
No one up front felt anything. I didn't put the basement underneath versus a concrete slab on ground together as the probable reason they didn't feel anything until later.
We went right back to work and it wasn't till we were going to Harold's on Admiral for lunch that we heard about the 5.5 quake in southern Illinois less than 2 hours earlier.
I don't recall any damage locally- but it was quite an experience feeling my first quake 2 years after seeing/predicting my first tornado.
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