At 5:04 this morning, an earthquake woke me and thousands of other people in the Washington, DC area. It was a small one, just magnitude 3.6 centered under Germantown, Maryland, according to the US Geological Survey. But seismic waves travel far through the strong rock of the Eastern US and so it should have been felt by residents more than 50 km from its epicenter. It may have even jolted President Obama awake.

I’ve reported on hundreds of quakes during my career but this is the first time I’ve been woken up by one and only the second time I’ve felt a quake. The first was in 1989, when a magnitude 6.3 quake happened nearly 2,200 km away in northern Quebec. I was in a restaurant in Hartford, Connecticut when the table started gently swaying. I thought my brother was shaking the table until I noticed that all the tables in the place were shifting.

Just yesterday, I was thinking that the buildings in the DC area are poorly constructed for withstanding earthquakes. It may be George Washington’s fault, in part. I’ve been told, but can’t confirm, that Washington decreed that houses in the Nation’s capital be built of brick, which is notorious for collapsing during quakes unless it is reinforced. I hope today’s quake is not a foreshock for something larger.

Any readers out there have earthquake stories?

Image: Seismogram of earthquake, courtesy of Towson University and Maryland Department of Natural Resources