Source: Evan Bush
A magnitude 4.4 earthquake shook Seattle and the Puget Sound region just before 3 a.m. Friday morning, according to the United States Geological Survey. A tsunami is not expected, according to a tweet from the U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center.
The shaking emanated from Three Lakes, Washington, about 9 miles east of downtown Everett. The earthquake was relatively shallow, and originated about 6 miles beneath the surface, according to a USGS map.
The earthquake was felt all the way to the Canadian border, the USGS map reports. Kieran Smith, a 23-year-old Western Washington University student in Bellingham who lives on the fourth floor of an apartment building, reported feeling his bed shake and the building sway.
On social media overnight, many reported waking up or sensing the earthquake.
In Arlington, Wash., Tristan Halsen, a 20-year-old student at Everett Community College, 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.
Then, 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 Nisqually earthquake in grade school, said the earthquake left her with an unsettling feeling, particularly after a string of powerful earthquakes in California made top headlines.
“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 on Friday.
