JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Monday wasn’t a typical start to the week for some Florida residents.
After feeling their homes and windows rattle and vibrations beneath their feet, many took to social media, confused.
The reason, it turns out, came from tectonic plates shifting hundreds of miles away.
A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck Cuba in the southern Gulf around 2 p.m., sending shockwaves across parts of Florida, stretching up to Northeast Florida.
News4JAX commenters reported feeling shockwaves near Tinseltown, Baymeadows, downtown and beyond.
“I’m downtown, and some employees on our higher floors felt it as well. They described it as minor, but it gave them a brief sense of vertigo. I didn’t feel it personally,” a News4JAX Insider said.
“Felt it on the fourth floor in Jax. A jolt, the whole building shook for a second,” one person commented.
Chief meteorologist Richard Nunn explained why the shockwaves from Cuba were felt all the way in Northeast Florida.
“6.1 is a big earthquake, but here’s why we are feeling it: this thing was well off to the north and west of Cuba. This is in the Yucatan Channel, and the Yucatan Channel is anywhere between five to as much as 10,000 feet deep, makes up a big part here of the central Gulf, including the split here between the Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba. So when you make noise underwater, it actually travels faster than it does in air,” Nunn explained.
On Facebook, people shared similar experiences with residents from Amelia Island to Gainesville.
“All the way up in Jacksonville Florida, felt it and I live in Philips Pointe Apartments right here. On the 6th floor and yes it shook us all the way up. It’s 10 stories tall!!!!” Dawn Richey posted.
“I felt something thought I was tripping… had me looking out the window to see if the trees was moving,” Quetta Hall said.
Tarren, who grew up in California, didn’t remember much about experiencing any earthquakes, but knew something felt off after feeling today’s rumble.
“It was very, like odd, I think there was five or six of us, and we’re like, this is very odd. Like, this should not be shaking like this and moving,” they said.
The City of Jacksonville’s Emergency Preparedness Division said you weren’t imagining it.
The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Communications Center received several calls from residents reporting the shaking.
“The good news is there are no reports of damage associated with this earthquake, and there is no tsunami threat,” JaxReady wrote on Facebook. “Not something we experience every day in Jacksonville, but definitely enough to get people’s attention.”
If you want to report your experience, visit: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/tellus.