An earthquake centered in Virginia was felt in the Valley at about 1:50 p.m. today.
The quake measured a 5.9 in Virginia — making it the most powerful earthquake there since 1875. Click here for the history of the particular fault line in question.
If you were in a building of three stories or more — you couldn’t help but feel the tremors. Two distinct tremors could be felt at 158 Main St. in Ansonia, where the Valley Indy is located.
Firefighters — especially in Shelton, home to many high-rise office buildings —- responded to many precautionary calls, but there has been no damage reports.
Several office buildings off Bridgeport Avenue in Shelton were evacuated after the earthquake as a precaution.
Joe Delco, the vice president for property management for R.D. Scinto Inc., didn’t have a precise number of employees who were affected, but estimated “a few thousand” people left the buildings for about a half hour Tuesday.
Scinto owns several office buildings on Enterprise and Corporate Drive.
The tallest buildings are about 120 feet tall, with 10 stories.
Workers in two 10-story office buildings on Corporate Drive said the buildings appeared to be swaying, according to Shelton Fire Marshal James Tortora.
Tortora said the department checked for cracked windows or doors that wouldn’t open properly in each of the buildings.
They found no damage.
“More likely than not, there was no damage here from something in Washington, but better safe than sorry,” Tortora said.
Workers in five-story office buildings on Enterprise Drive noted slight tremors on the top two stories.
“It wasn’t anything you really noticed,” said Dean Scott, a business analyst for Flexi International, an accounting software company on the fifth floor of a building at 2 Enterprise Drive.
“I almost would have ignored it but someone across the hall said ‘Did you feel that?’” Scott said. “You saw the curtains shift a little.”
Calls for service for the Shelton Fire Department had died down by 3 p.m.
Ansonia firefighters checked out a report of a natural gas odor inside 200 Main St. However, their air meters did not pick up any gas readings. Firefighters said the call was not necessarily connected to the tremors.
Renee ‘Lisa’ McFarlin owns Lisa’s Beauty and Barber at 172 Main St. in Ansonia.
Her chair started to vibrate just before 2 p.m. — but no one else in the shop felt anything.
“They said it was just me,” McFarlin said.
Watch the following video with McFarlin. Article continues after the video.
Then she saw about six workers from the neighboring four-story building out on the sidewalk.
“I knew it had to be something,” McFarlin said.
In Derby, building official David Kopjanski said he did not feel the tremor inside the first floor of City Hall on Elizabeth Street. Neither he nor Fire Marshal Phil Hawks received any tremor-related calls, Kopjanski said.
In Seymour, chairs in Town Hall shook, but there was no damage, other than some frazzled nerves.
Tom Caruso, of Jimmy’s Place at 133 Main St. in Seymour, was in the kitchen of the restaurant when he heard a commotion from the bar and seating area.
People could feel the floor shaking — and see the liquid inside the liquor bottles behind the bar moving.
“Everybody out here started jumping around and everything was just moving,” Caruso said.
Caruso didn’t think earthquake, at first. He thought a propane tank had exploded somewhere.
In Oxford, Town Hall administrative assistant Joseph Calabrese said the fire department received one 911 call from a resident who felt tremors. There was no damage reported.
In Shelton, Jamal Ford-Bey, an account manager with CDW Group, said he didn’t feel the tremors on the fourth-floor of 2 Enterprise Drive.
But with a cell phone in hand, he was checking in on reports about the earthquake as he sat in the corporate courtyard and waited to be let back into the building with hundreds of other workers.
“Maybe with all the stuff going on in the world, the planet’s trying to shake us off,” he said with a shrug.
Click here to tell the USGS you felt the quake.
Click here to read why we felt the quake here in Connecticut.
Click here to read the Washington Post’s coverage of the quake.
Visit our Facebook page, where readers posted what they felt as it was happening.
Here is a video on the quake posted by the Connecticut Science Center:
