Over there you don't have Muslims driving aircraft into your buildings. When something moves and shakes here, many of us think they're at it again.
Like many other people who lived near DC on 9-11, I thought the ground was shaking because a nuke had gone off or some other catastrophe had taken place. An earthquake is also more of a concern here because we have many precious but fragile historic buildings that weren't built to California code, but are essential to our country's history. Some of us even live in extremely old houses. It feels different here too because the formation of rock is much older, and the tremors traveled a thousand miles today. So a 5.9 is a much bigger deal to us than to you.
The last thing I thought was earthquake. I thought someone had set off a nuke in either NYC or DC and we were getting the shockwave.
Just saw the photo on Drudge of all those people in the street (D.C. or New York?). Had that earthquake happened in the area wherein those people were standing there, likely, would have been many deaths from falling concrete and huge shards of glass. Bad earthquake etiquette.
I’m glad I’m not the only one. That was my first earthquake, I work in an old warehouse near NAS Pax River. My first thought while feeling the gound shake and watching the overhead lights swaying and flickering amounted to “How many kT was it if we’re feeling it down here.