The Earth moved — somehow
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
AUGUSTA — Don't blame earthquakes for the rattles and rolls that shook buildings and shook up people in the middle of the afternoon Friday.
The definitive word from the National Earthquake Information Center in Boulder, Colo., is that the three shakes and booms were not caused by earthquakes.
Bob Lent, district chief for the U.S. Geological Survey, said, "They did not detect anything above background that could indicate an earthquake."
Lent, whose office is on Whitten Road, said, "It sounded like a blast to me."
While the rumbling began about 2:45 p.m., more incidents were reported later in the evening.
Augusta Police said they received a number of calls, one for an elevator stuck at Hallowell City Hall. The elevator was empty at the time, but the malfunction was blamed on the rattling.
At 7:32 p.m., an alarm went off at the state Liquor and Lottery Building on Water Street in Hallowell. Hallowell police responded to both those calls.
An hour or so later, a resident on Pleasant Hill Road reported what sounded like blasting.
Kennebec County Sheriff's dispatchers referred the afternoon incidents to the county Emergency Management Agency.
Vincent Cerasuolo, director of the agency, said he had not located the origin of the shaking by Friday evening. He said he first determined there were no injuries or damage. "Peoples' nerves were kind of shattered," he said.
He added, "Let's not get excited until we find out what it is."
He speculated the noises could have been from blasting.
Lent also suggested the origin could be sonic booms from planes traveling faster than the speed of sound.
An unscientific geographic survey found that the boom and shake affected those in the State House and state office complex and reached as far north in Augusta as the Civic Center.
To the southeast, a woman in Chelsea called the Kennebec Sheriff's Office to ask about it, and said workers felt it in the Town Office.
The booms shook windows in homes on Riverside Drive in Augusta and entered e-mail conversations among children in Hayford Heights in Farmingdale.
On the east side of the Kennebec River, a teenager yelled at her younger brother. She told her mother she thought he was making the noises upstairs.
Lent, from the federal agency, said while Friday's rumbles weren't earthquakes, it is easy to mistake earthquakes for something else.
"The first time I heard an earthquake in Maine, I thought my boiler blew up. It was a loud explosion," he said. "It wasn't until a half-hour later I found out it was an earthquake."
Lent originally classified today's boom, at 2:45 p.m., as thunder.
Steve Palmer, from the state Department of Transportation's field office, said crews working on a new bridge across the Kennebec River were not blasting Friday afternoon.
Other crews working at buildings on the Augusta Mental Health Institute campus were blasting early Friday, but had stopped hours before the loud rumbles.
Legislators told each other it was construction.
Betty Adams — 621-5631
badams@centralmaine.com