'The whole building rocked': Marylanders remember earthquake 10 years later
A 5.8 magnitude earthquake centered in Virginia was felt in the greater Baltimore area 10 years ago Monday.
The earthquake caused more than $3 million worth of damage to the Baltimore Basilica in the form of more than 50 different cracks.
There were similar stories all over the greater Baltimore area after bricks fell, cracks formed in foundations and objects fell off shelves.
While 10 years have passed, no one seems to have forgotten.
"I was at work in Tyson's Corner Mall, and all the vases came flying down in my retail store," Shana Schlemp said.
"I was kind of beside myself because I didn't believe it, but everybody was on the news and everybody was broadcasting it, and then people started coming out to the streets because they were evacuating buildings. They didn’t know it was going to happen," John Stemmer said.
"I was asleep in a high-rise apartment. They had kids over top of us, so I thought the kids were doing a little extra playing. Come to find out, we had an earthquake," Malik Riley said.
The 2011 earthquake was one of the strongest earthquakes to be felt in Maryland. At 1:51 p.m. on Aug. 23, 2011, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake hit about 38 miles northwest of Richmond, Virginia, and was felt across more than a dozen states.
Richard Ortt, director of the Maryland Geological Survey and the state's go-to guy for earthquakes, remembers it like it was yesterday.
"I was at the (U.S. Geological Survey) Water Science Center down in Catonsville, and that building is constructed a little bit on stilts, and the whole building rocked," Ortt said. "We were very concerned. It definitely showed itself as an earthquake and all the preliminary responses came back as an earthquake."
Watch: 2011 archive video from 11 News:
See pictures of the damage:
Ortt told 11 News that while damage was widespread, and some areas worse than others, thankfully, there were no serious injuries or deaths.
Ortt told 11 News that while strong earthquakes are unusual in Maryland, smaller ones can be common -- just unpredictable.
"The state of Maryland is still in a low to moderate seismic risk category and that is not changed," Ortt said.
Since the 2011 earthquake, Marylanders have experienced much smaller ones. According to the MGS, there is, on average, an earthquake in Maryland once every three years.
