Mid-Hudson all shook up by 5.8 magnitude quake

MIDDLETOWN — Tremors from a 5.8-magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia reached into New York on Tuesday afternoon, rattling residents and government officials in Orange, Ulster and Sullivan counties.

No major injuries or damage were reported. But governments across the state temporarily evacuated offices, airports diverted flights and alarmed residents flooded social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, with reports.

"My table felt like it was going to walk," said Monroe resident Myra Sylvester, who watched the table where she sat with her husband move and her chandeliers sway. "It was scary."

Amanda Hickey, an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer, was working in her first-floor office at PathStone on Chambers Street in Newburgh.

"I was sitting at my desk, and I felt some rumbling," Hickey said. "I thought I was just having some blood sugar issues, so I didn't say anything to my co-workers. But it turned out it was an actual earthquake."

The quake struck at 1:51 p.m. It was centered about 40 miles northwest of Richmond, Va., 80 miles southwest of Washington, D.C., and 300 miles from New York City.

The Federal Aviation Administration temporarily evacuated the control towers at John F. Kennedy International Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport, said Port Authority spokesman Ron Marsico.

As a result, two Continental/United flights, two Lufthansa flights and one JetBlue flight were diverted to Stewart International Airport. The planes all refueled and then proceeded to their original destinations.

Safety concerns also led to temporary evacuations around the state. The evacuations included the Ulster County Office Building government center in Ulster County, City Hall and other buildings in Port Jervis and an office building at 33 Fulton St. in Middletown. The tremors also temporarily shut down the Dutchess County Fair.

Dozens of people poured out of buildings in Uptown Kingston. There was a sense of deja vu in the neighborhood, which also was rattled last summer by a quake that originated near Toronto.

Valerie Whitworth, of Whitworth Jewelers in Kingston, was showing a pair of earrings to a customer when the earrings began to sway. Then she heard a loud crackle.

"The whole tin ceiling in the store was cracking," she said. "It was very loud."

Whitworth was more terrified when she learned the epicenter was in Virginia, where her son, Tyler Jordon, lives. Within seconds, she was on her cell phone. Jordon was fine.

"At first I thought a truck — a big one — had struck the building," Jordon said.

The 911 center in Orange County received more than 100 calls from worried residents, said Emergency Services Commissioner Walter Koury.

Dick Martinkovic, Sullivan County's public safety commissioner, was reached at his summer home in Delaware.

Martinkovic said he was sitting in a chair on a concrete pad when he felt shaking that lasted 15 to 20 seconds. He was briefed on multiple reports of shaking in Sullivan when he called county officials.

"So far, they haven't talked about any major damage," Martinkovic said.

Not everyone felt the tremors, however. Erin Marcus of Montgomery said she barely felt the vibrations while she was eating lunch, though she felt like things were swaying. Marcus had no idea that these were earthquake rumbles until she turned on the news.

Swami Kripananda was meditating with his visiting students at the Aspects Gallery Inn and Spa in Woodstock when the earthquake hit. The group was unaware of the seismic shake-up until an hour later, he said.

"Yes, you could say we had an unshakable meditation," the swami quipped.

Times Herald-Record staff members Amy Berkowitz, Adam Bosch, Deb Medenbach, Victor Whitman, Doyle Murphy, Alyssa Sunkin and Heather Yakin contributed to this report.

CALLICOON: Rosie DeCristofaro, who was in her real estate office on Bridge Street, said she noticed her window shaking and she was so concerned she walked outside and then called a friend. “I said, ‘Am I crazy or did the Earth just start moving?' and she said, ‘No, I felt it too.' Who would have expected it in Callicoon?” Victor Whitman LIBERTY: Carolyn Williams was sitting on her bed when it started shaking. At first she thought it had to be her cat scratching on the bed, but when she looked, he wasn't there. When she realized her cat was asleep elsewhere, she wondered momentarily whether it was ghosts – even though she doesn't believe in such things. Then she switched on the TV and saw news coverage of the earthquake. “I am so excited,” she said. “I just felt an earthquake.” Alyssa Sunkin LOCH SHELDRAKE: Lisa Irwin ran out of her mobile home as it began to sway back and forth as the ground beneath it shook. “It scared the living daylights out of her,” said her mother-in-law, Margaret McIntosh of Liberty, who didn't feel anything. “She was so scared and she's scared now.” Irwin and her neighbor refused to go back inside their homes, even after the tremors stopped. Alyssa Sunkin NEWBURGH: Marilyn Faricellia was in her home when the chair she was sitting in, watching “Days of Our Lives,” started to move back and forth. At first, she thought it might have been a tornado, but when she looked outside, the trees weren't moving. Then she feared her home's foundation was crumbling. She found out that it was an earthquake originating from Virginia when an emergency bulletin interrupted the broadcast. “I can't believe that I actually felt that, that it traveled so far,” she said. Alyssa Sunkin Reporters' notebook GARDINER: Charlie Stiscia felt the tremor at his home. “It was to the point where that couch was moving back and forth,” he said. He called his wife at her job at Stewart International Airport; Stiscia said she told him she had felt her office building shake. Heather Yakin SUGAR LOAF: Dean Diltz thought someone had played a trick on him. When the couch he was sitting on in his house started to shake back and forth, his first instinct was to look under the couch to make sure no one was pulling a fast one on him. Sure enough, no one was there. It was a familiar kind of very low, very fast rumbling shake. “It was very eerie,” he said. When he found out it was an earthquake, he put two and two together. Diltz has felt his fair share of earthquakes, having lived in California for 8½ years. He has felt more than a dozen, including the Loma Prieta earthquake that hit the San Franscisco Bay Area during the World Series, Oct. 17, 1989. Alyssa Sunkin PINE ISLAND: For a split second, Chrissy Pahucki thought she was going crazy. The Pine Island woman, who had just taken antibiotics, thought she felt her couch moving back and forth, and heard her home make an unsettling creaking sound, but her young daughter sitting next to her didn't feel or hear a thing. “I thought, ‘What kind of medicine am I on?'” she recalled with a chuckle. She realized what had happened when she got a call from her husband, Brian, a geologist who works for the state Department of Transportation as a geotechnical engineer. He was stuck on a bridge over the Hudson River and didn't feel a thing. “He was all excited,” she said. “It was wild.” Alyssa Sunkin

Reporters' Notebook