Local residents rattled by earthquake tremors

Jun. 19—ANDERSON — Nicole Wilbur and her 8-year-old son, Hayden Moss, felt the 3.8 magnitude earthquake that was reported northeast of Montezuma around 3:15 p.m. on Thursday.

"We were at home in our living room in Anderson," Wilber said in a Facebook message. "I was working when it happened and my boy was watching the TV. He heard it over the movie."

She said this was the first time her son had experienced tremors from an earthquake and he wanted to know, "Is the Earth falling?"

Wilbur and her son live in Anderson's historic district near Eighth Street and Madison Avenue.

The first time Wilbur felt an earthquake was 11 years ago when a 4.0 magnitude quake was also registered in the Montezuma area, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The 2010 earthquake woke Wilbur and "shook" her from the bed. She said the intensity of both earthquakes felt about the same.

"The tremor felt like my kitchen chair just turned into a massage chair all of a sudden," Wilbur said.

Patty Lovins, membership and event services manager for the Madison County Chamber of Commerce, said everyone in the office, located in the Union Building in downtown Anderson, felt the tremors.

"It was so quick," said Lovins. "It was like this boom and then a little bit of shaking. We felt like something had dropped from the ceiling. Like someone had dropped some heavy equipment or furniture from upstairs. It was really weird."

Lovins said she has experienced a tremor from an earthquake while in California and it lasted for a few seconds. The one on Thursday was much shorter in comparison.

She said no one imagined the sound or rattling in the office was from an earthquake more than 100 miles away. People living in Illinois and Michigan also reported feeling the tremors.

"We didn't think about it being an earthquake," Lovins said. "We were just thinking it must have been something upstairs and we felt it down here."

Shelly Hudson was sitting on her back porch in Pendleton and working when she felt the tremors.

"My dog was laying at my feet and I kind of felt it under my feet like a little rumbling so I looked up and my dog looked up at the same time," she said. "He jumped up and the chandelier on my back porch was swaying."

Hudson laughed as she recalled the "weird" experience.

She said her dog began walking in circles and was trying to figure out what had happened.

"Once I saw his reaction, I thought, 'That was an earthquake,'" Hudson said.

A former resident of California, Hudson said she experienced tremors there as well as one in Illinois. The one in Illinois was stronger than the one in California.

"It was in the middle of the night and it shook everyone out of bed and everything," Hudson said.

She immediately called other family members living in the area who said they hadn't felt anything.

"I kind of thought I was crazy," Hudson said with a laugh. "Then I got on Facebook and was like, 'Yeah!' Someone else felt it — I'm not too crazy.'"

Hudson said her husband was also home and working in the basement, but he didn't feel it.

"It was kind of weird," she said how some people could feel it and others didn't.

Hudson said people don't think about earthquakes in Indiana.

She said she moved back to Pendleton shortly before the tornado touched down in 2019 and given the two types of disasters, she would choose an earthquake over a tornado.

"Pendleton had never had a tornado before that, then we have the pandemic and now the earthquake, but I feel safer here than any place I've ever lived," Hudson said.

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