MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A small earthquake shook the Mid-South around 5:15 Sunday morning. There were no reports of damage.
The USGS says the quake measured a magnitude 3.7 and was centered near Manila, Arkansas, in the northeast corner of the state.
Pat Eason was sound asleep when she was jolted awake by the quake as it shook her bed.
“I just thought, `What happened? What was that?'” she said. “Just a sway, kind of a tremble.”
Even though it was small, this was the most powerful quake the Mid-South has seen in years.
“The last one — the more powerful one that happened here about this magnitude — was approximately about two to three years ago, if I’m not mistaken,” WREG meteorologist Austen Onek said.
The tremor hit a good 85 miles from Eason’s house in East Memphis.
“I just dismissed it and then when I saw the news, I thought, ‘Oh, that`s why it felt familiar.'”
Familiar, because she’s been through it before. Eason has experienced five other earthquakes in her life.
“Some have been like where your whole front of your house is shaking,” she said. “It’s quite frightening.”
Dozens of News Channel 3 viewers reported their windows rattling, pictures shaking on the walls and animals going crazy.
In the early 1800s, several massive earthquakes measuring at least 8.0 magnitude hit the Mid-South, sending people into a panic.
“It caused the Mississippi river to run backwards, helped to form Reelfoot Lake in northwest Tennessee and caused a lot of damage in and around this area before it was really widely settled. A lot of people thought that the world was coming to an end,” Onek said.
This tremor could trigger more, so his advice is to be prepared.
“We’re very close to that fault line — one of the biggest cities close to the New Madrid fault, so we need to be ready for that.”
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