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As Booms Return, Clintonville Asks USGS for Quake Monitors: Updated
Updated: Mar 28, 2012 5:19 PM CDT
Clintonville - Just as many people in Clintonville were starting to think the booming and shaking were over, they're back, and reportedly stronger than before.
Police received more than 60 calls starting at 10:35 Tuesday night, mostly from Clintonville's northeast side again, about a series of three booms and shaking. Some callers said it was stronger than last week.
A second event was reported by about 10 callers at 11:30 P.M., and there were also a handful of calls at one, two, and four o'clock Wednesday morning.
City Administrator Lisa Kuss says some callers were farther west than those who reported the noises and tremors last week.
"People described things in many ways similar to what we heard last week, but some people who also would have heard it last week also indicated that they seem stronger this one seemed worse, bigger, louder, longer," Kuss said.
No damage was reported.
The booms and shakes that were heard and felt by Clintonville residents last week became a familiar occurrence, but Lisa Marchel remarked Wednesday, "I pretty much thought they were over because I hadn't really felt anything since Friday night."
That was the feeling of many residents trying to get back to normal after the USGS confirmed days of mysterious booming and shaking were a low-magnitude earthquake.
But rumbling and booming noises returned overnight, packing a stronger punch and catching residents off-guard.
"Last night I was just standing in my bedroom and it was like, boom, and my floor shook," Marchel described. "This one was bigger than anything I've felt."
"It sounds like somebody's coming in the house with the car, you know? That great big sound you get from hitting something," Marge Bickford said.
The USGS believes it was another series of small earthquakes but doesn't have the data yet to back that up.
House-shaking booms were reported in Clintonville for several nights early last week. The USGS eventually reported a 1.5 magnitude earthquake shook the area last Tuesday morning. They believe a swarm of "micro-earthquakes" caused last week's noises and shaking.
The USGS says it's not uncommon for quakes to occur in a series.
"Whatever is causing it is just slowly releasing energy and stress. It's a stress-releasing kind of a scenario, so you will experience multiple earthquakes," Dutton explained.
And although these small quakes may be startling, the USGS says they're virtually harmless and will probably diminish over time.
"As far as the magnitude the size of these earthquakes that we've seen so far, I mean, they're just going to cause a lot of alarm for an area that is not used to having any kind of event," USGS geophysicist Julie Dutton said.
Kuss offered three reasons why there's so little data on the Clintonville rumblings:
•The smaller the magnitude of a quake, the harder it is to find the activity picked up by monitors
•The farther the activity is from monitors, the less likely it is to be picked up
•The more outside noise and interference, such as Tuesday night's strong winds, make it more difficult to detect the activity on the monitors
She says the only factor within their control is the second one, to bring in monitors closer to the earthquake activity.
That's why she sent a formal request for the agency to install additional monitors in the area, and she would like experts from the USGS to come to Clintonville.
"What we need to push now is for the USGS to bring in monitors, or perhaps universities in our area that have geologists. It seems like with the attention we've gotten there may be some interesting studies in this situation," Kuss said.
Residents are still asked to call the Clintonville Police Department if they experience any more booming or shaking
http://www.wbay.com/story/17271487/2012/03/28/clintonville-booms-return