NYC NOW - SPECIAL EPISODE: An earthquake hits NYC and surrounding region

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

SPECIAL EPISODE: An earthquake has hit New York City and the surrounding region this morning about 10:20. The U.S. Geological Survey has measured the earthquake's intensity at 4-point-8 with the epicenter in northwestern New Jersey. That number could fluctuate. For more context, WNYC's Brian Lehrer speaks with Rutgers University geological professor Alexander Gates who calls it a "big" earthquake" in New Jersey. For the very latest updates, tune into WNYC.

NYC now. I see. I'm welcome to NYC now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jenei Pierre. An earthquake hit New York City and the surrounding region Friday morning around 1020. The U.S. Geological Survey has measured the earthquake's intensity at 4.8 with the epicenter in northwestern New Jersey. That number could fluctuate. It's unclear what kind of damage the earthquake has done, if any.

We do have reports of books falling off shelves. The USGS says the quake center was White House Station in northern New Jersey's Huntington County, about 50 miles west of Manhattan. Governor Phil Murphy has activated the state emergency operations center, and New York Governor Kathy Hockel says her team is assessing impact and any damage that may have occurred. Alexander Gates is a geological professor at Rutgers University. He called it a big earthquake, the biggest ever measured in New Jersey. WMYC's Brian Laird talked with Gates for more information.

What just happened here? Well, we had a big earthquake. You know, this is maybe probably the biggest instrumental earthquake we've ever had in New Jersey or even in the area. You know, so we've had big ones that are even big that are estimated to be bigger than this. but the last one we had was in 1884 before we had any cyzum graphs. So this is the first one this big that we can actually capture on seismographs. So 4.8 is the preliminary number that I've seen in some early media reports. Is that what you have?

That's what I've heard, yes. And give us the context for that. Since people around here don't generally have to pay close attention to the Richter scale, put 4.8 in context for us if you can. Okay, well, you know, clearly the killer earthquakes are something above a seven. So those are the ones that we hear about to do a lot of damage. The magnitude, and this is not Richter anymore, that's the old scale. So the magnitude scale is the amount of energy released by the earthquake as it goes off.

And so, as I said, above a seven is huge. You know, when you get it in the five range, it can do some damage. So, for example, the one that we had that is estimated at a 5.2 that occurred in 1884, toppled chimneys in Raleigh, New Jersey. It toppled chimneys. It was around Jamaica Bay. It toppled a steeple in that area, pulled houses off their foundations. So something in the fire.

range in an area that's not used to earthquake can do a fair amount of damage. Did you feel it where you are? Are you in New Brunswick where the main records campus is? No, I'm actually out in the field right now. And so, well, I'm near a road. So I heard felt rumbling, but I thought maybe it was a big truck going by. So I really didn't, if I had been sitting in my house or in my office, I would have said, wow, there's an earthquake. Here it was like, it felt a little straight. but that was about it. What causes something like this to happen in this unprecedented way for our area that you described?

Well, we have a bunch of fault, and there's faults all over the East Coast, but there are faults all across New Jersey. And most of these faults that are active now are, they lie east-west or northwest across the state. So kind of a cross, you know, normally everything in the state goes kind of the northeast. These cross cut everything. And these faults, because we have, you know, residual stresses from plates interacting, basically what happens is that the stress builds up enough along the fault so that it exceeds its strength and the fault crack, basically. The rock actually breaks.

So what you would hear, like if you broke a pencil, you know, you're squeat, you press on the pencil hard enough and then snap and you hear that the noise, those sound waves are basically equivalent to what the seismic waves that come out of the fall star. So the seismic waves is what you feel as the, you know, as the vibrations that come out of the earthquake. We're seeing a few different websites and thanks to producer Kate Hines for forwarding some of this along real quick. Kate Hines is an all of it, producer.

jumping in to help out here, sent us the link to the Centers for Disease Control website that says in an earthquake, and I have it open now, if you are inside, stay inside. Do not run outside or to other rooms during an earthquake. You are less likely to be injured if you stay where you are. Now, do you think that applies to your saying, right? So you think that would apply to people listening to this right now and deciding what to do? Well, I mean, it depends on, I mean, right, obviously it depends on what kind of house you're in, what kind of situation you're in. The big problem with earthquakes is, you know, they tend to shake things off of buildings. So the worst thing you can do in a big earthquake is to go stand at, which is a lot of what people do.

They say, oh, let's evacuate the building and they go stand out in front of it. Well, you know, windows can pop out of the building and, you know, and some of the facing stuff. stones can come out. And, of course, when that falls down on somebody, that's when you get hurt. So the thing is not to stand out in front of a building. I mean, standing out in an open field, you're perfectly safe. And, you know, if you're in a lower building that's relatively new and relatively well-constructed, you probably don't have a whole lot to worry about. It's in older buildings, in infrastructure that's had time to decay, in buildings that are high buildings, those are the ones you have to make sure you don't get out in front of. This is WNYC reporting on the New York and New Jersey earthquake that apparently happened at 1023 this morning, and people are still asking themselves what just happened here and assessing any possible damage where they are.

We have not had any reports yet of major damage or of any injuries. We will see if any emerge. We're getting a report now from the MTA, that service is unaffected. So that's the first report from the MTA. Service is unaffected. I guess that would mean all bus, subway, and commuter rail lines in the MTA system. We'll see about NJ Transit as soon as we can get a report from them. New Jersey Transit now tweeting,

rail service system-wide is subject to up to 20-minute delays in both directions due to bridge inspections following an earlier earthquake. I love that bureaucratic language. Bridge inspection following an earlier earthquake. So, yeah, that was my first reaction when I saw that MTA announcement that everything is running normally. Of course, normally means with a lot of delays, but that's another show. But wouldn't they want to stop some of the elevated service especially and do some inspections? This sounds prudent from NJ Transit.

Yeah, it is a prudent thing to do. I mean, as I said, the problem with areas like this, as opposed to, say, California or someplace that gets regular large earthquakes, is that infrastructure can decay and can get into a very, very precarious situation. And then when the earthquake comes by, it'll knock things over that normally it wouldn't. And so that's the thing you have to worry about. That's why areas that don't get earthquakes very often can have much worse issues when they actually finally do. Professor Gates, before I let you go, is there any reason to think that this was the first

shake of more to come? And if so, would they tend to be stronger or weaker? There probably will be others. They may not happen within 10 minutes or 20 minutes, but within the next several probably days to weeks, we will get more earthquakes in the area. The way it works is you build up stress on a fault and then it cracks, it breaks, but then because it does that,

it transmits stresses to other places on the fault. So it usually takes a while for the entire fault to even out. And that means you will get additional earthquakes. Typically, these are going to be aftershocks, and aftershocks are smaller. Now, in big areas, you know, this could be a foreshock and you could even get a bigger earthquake, but that's extremely unlikely in this area. This is a big earthquake for us. So I would expect to see earthquakes in the range of two to three,

magnitudes two to three over the next, you know, maybe days to weeks. Well, you know, as we wrap up with you, people have been saying all week that they're getting ready for this natural phenomenon that's really rare in our area and they're ready for it to be really special and different and maybe disorienting. But we thought it was going to be Monday. Yeah. I don't think these have anything to do with each other, but, you know, some people might say they do. Alexander Gates, geology professor at Rutgers, again, thank you on no notice for hopping on with us and sharing your expertise. My pleasure.

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