Did that loud boom shake your house Thursday morning? Here's what it was
No, there wasn't a meltdown at the St. Lucie Nuclear Power Plant.
Residents of Indian River County — and some people farther south — had their mornings interrupted by a sonic boom, which shook windows and spooked pets around 10:30 a.m. Dozens took to social media to ask their neighbors what the noise was.
"What the heck was that big boom a few minutes ago? Shook my windows!! All the birds took off!" wrote one person.
A handful of people expressed similar shock, but others were quick to reassure: the boom came from SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket launch in Cape Canaveral.
The rocket launched at 10:25 a.m., sending 105 government and commercial satellites into space. Its booster detached and successfully landed at its designated landing zone minutes after launch.
This was the first local landing of a Falcon 9 since June of last year, according to Florida Today.
The rocket's sonic boom reverberated down the Treasure Coast, and four people called Indian River County Sheriff's Office to ask about it, spokesperson Keith Carson said.
The concerned residents were simply informed about the rocket launch and told that the boom was expected, he said. Other than a few people calling the police, there were no major disturbances.
Vero Beach Police Department didn't receive any calls about the boom, said Master Officer Darrell Rivers. Neither did Martin County Sheriff's Office, said spokesperson Christine Weiss.
"It's been many years since I've heard the sonic booms," said J.B. Traynor, a resident of Indian River Estates. "So I guess it's just been so long that I've forgotten about it."
Traynor didn't know about the launch, so when the boom shook her house, she posted about it on Nextdoor, asking others what happened. She thought it might've been an industrial accident, or possibly a cannon being fired off from a Civil War reenactment.
"A lot of the neighbors were saying, 'I was looking for smoke — the power plant,'" Traynor said, laughing.
Sonic booms happen when aircraft travel faster than the speed of sound. The aircraft pushes a cone of pressurized air molecules out of the way so quickly that they're spread out into a shock wave.
It's rare for sonic booms to break windows or cause serious structural damage to buildings, but it's technically possible if the the sonic boom is powerful enough, according to NASA. But buildings that are structurally sound can withstand even powerful shocks.
Thomas Weber is a Digital Now Reporter at TCPalm. You can reach him at thomas.weber@tcpalm.com or 813-545-9113. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: A SpaceX launch sent a sonic boom across the Treasure Coast
