Tuesday, February 9, 2010 | DeKalb County's Oldest Newspaper |
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The Aftershocks
Published May 1, 2003
The day after was a busy one in DeKalb County for teams of scientists anxious to study the impact of a 4.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked DeKalb County early Tuesday morning.
Those researchers, however, have no way of predicting when or if the next quake will come.
What they do know is the DeKalb County quake was the largest in history in the Southern Appalachian Mountains.
“When I heard there was an earthquake, I new where it was,” said Dorothy Raymond, with the Alabama Geological Survey, at a Wednesday afternoon press conference in Fort Payne.
She knew because she has plotted earthquakes in Alabama for the last 10 years, and DeKalb County has been the most active area in the state during that time.
In all, the state has registered 12 earthquakes in DeKalb during that time, and Raymond said Tuesday’s was in the middle of those.
DeKalb County Emergency Management director Ricky Little said Wednesday he has received reports of between 40-50 structures damaged and believes that number could rise to as many as 100 before the reports end.
“We do encourage all property owners to call and let us know,” Little said.
Most damage is minor, small cracks in walls or foundations, and Raymond said little to no visible evidence would be noticed throughout the county.
One noticeable difference came from a property owner who had an artesian well stop flowing following the quake, but it started again late Wednesday afternoon.
Tuesday’s quake was centered around what geologists call “basement” rock, so far below the earth’s surface little testing has been done, according to Raymond.
While DeKalb County does sit on fault lines, Raymond said none of these have been active since the formation of the Appalachian Mountains, and were not related to this quake.
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