Early-morning tremor wakes up residents
By IVANNA HAMPTON Updated 3:26 PM CST, Wed, Feb 10, 2010
A 3.8 magnitude earthquake rattled Chicago-area homes early Wednesday, waking up residents from Indiana to Wisconsin. The quake struck at 3:59 a.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
“It shook the house, rattled the windows and doors,” viewer John Bruno wrote in an email. “It woke us out of a sleep and got the dog barking! It shook our whole house!“
The tremor’s epicenter was determined to be in a farm field on Plank Road near Hampshire, Illinois. The quake was originally reported as a 4.3 magnitude tremor emanating from Geneva, about five miles east of Sycamore, but the U.S. Geological Survey revised its statement.
The USGS fielded thousands of phone calls with similar stories, geophysicist Amy Vaughan said. Reports came in from Villa Park, Minooka, the Northwest Side and even Crown Point, Indiana and Madison, Wisconsin. Some reports even came in from Tennessee.