A magnitude 4.6 earthquake shook Seattle and the Puget Sound region just before 3 a.m. Friday morning, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The shaking emanated from Three Lakes, Snohomish County, about nine miles east of downtown Everett. The earthquake was relatively shallow, and originated about 14 miles beneath the surface, according to a USGS map.
There were no immediate reports of damage in Snohomish County, according to a tweet from the Sheriff’s Office. Police in nearby Lake Stevens reported no damage to city infrastructure.
A second quake, measured at magnitude 3.5, was reported near Monroe a few minutes afterward.
Initial USGS reports had described the larger trembling as a magnitude 4.4 earthquake that began shallower in the earth’s surface.
The larger earthquake was felt to the Canadian border, the USGS map reports.
Kieran Smith, 23, a Western Washington University student in Bellingham who lives in a fourth-floor apartment, said he felt his bed shake and the building sway.
On social media, many reported waking up or sensing the earthquake.
In Arlington, Tristan Halsen, 20, an Everett Community College student, was sitting on his couch working on homework when he heard a “really loud rumbling like a stampede,” he said in a Twitter message. A wall-mounted TV began shaking. At first, he thought it was a thunderstorm. Then, his house began shaking “for what seemed like forever,” he said.
“I think this was my first ‘big’ earthquake that I can remember and it was interesting to experience one this big,” he wrote.
Leah Kennebeck, who lives in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood, said in a Twitter message that she woke up from a dream to her bed shaking and her ceiling light fixture rattling.
She “sat straight up and froze” trying to feel if the shaking was getting worse, she said.
“Once I realized things were rattling in my room longer than if it was from something like a truck going by, I knew it was an earthquake,” she said.
Kennebeck, who last felt shaking during the 2001 magnitude 6.8 Nisqually earthquake in grade school, said the quake left her with an unsettling feeling, particularly after a string of powerful earthquakes in California last week.
“Scared the crap out of me. And it was only a 4.4. My 4th grade self would be ashamed,” she wrote.
She said she’ll be putting together an updated emergency kit later Friday.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/magnitude-4-4-earthquake-shakes-seattle-overnight/