Hatters feel shake of a quake

Several local residents recall feeling ‘uneasy’ or ‘dizzy’ after magnitude 5.8 earthquake hits Montana just after midnight

Was it, or wasn’t it? It couldn’t have been, could it?

Hatters who had an uneasy feeling after midnight on Thursday morning awoke to discover they had likely felt a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that was centred in western Montana at about 12:30 a.m.

That tremor was followed by seven smaller quakes over the next hour, but the largest could have been felt up to 800 kilometres away, according to U.S. authorities.

Hatter Nick Clements was awake at the time working on his computer in his Crescent Heights home when he suddenly felt light headed and thought he was ill.

“All of a sudden I was really dizzy, like a really slow backand-forth,” Clements told the News. “I felt momentum but everything was still.

“Then I noticed my light swinging a little bit and the windows creaking. I thought, ‘Geez, is this an earthquake?’”

The quake was centred in Lincoln, Mont., about halfway between Missoula and Helena, where, the U.S. Geological Survey states, tremors were great enough to wake residents and knock products off store shelves.

The epicentre was about 500 kilometres southwest of Medicine Hat.

There were no reports of damage locally, but a number of Hatters took to social media asking if anyone else had felt the sensation, wondering if there was artillery going on at CFB Suffield.

Hamptons’ resident Krista Wilde said she had just got into bed at about 12:40 a.m. when she felt uneasy.

“I just turned out the light and felt the bed start to move,” said Wilde. “At first I though it was the dog, but it was across the room, then maybe someone under the bed.

“It didn’t last long, then I said ‘Holy, I need to get some sleep.’”

Tania Haynes told the News she felt her bed tilt back and forth and was initially startled, thinking a major malfunction was occurring in her house or with her appliances.

Eventually she asked her daughter if it could have been an earthquake.

“She said I was crazy,” Haynes told the News. “Now I can say that I've felt an earthquake.”

The Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology in Butte said the quake was probably the strongest in Montana since October 1964 and was located along the axis of the intermountain seismic belt.

The Associated Press states that there have been more than 70 quakes measuring larger than 4.5 in Montana and parts of Wyoming and Idaho since 1925. The largest quake in Montana history was magnitude 7.2 near West Yellowstone in 1959.

-- with Files from the Canadian Press

LINCOLN, Mont. The strongest earthquake to hit Montana in more than half a century sent bartenders jumping over bars, food falling off grocery store shelves and woke up residents and dogs.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or serious damage from the magnitude5.8 earthquake that hit early Thursday, but the eight patrons at the Wilderness Bar in Lincoln headed for the doors as stools and glass bottles started falling over.

“I just jumped over the bar and pretty much landed in a guy's lap,” bartender Sheri Deluca told the Great Falls Tribune.

At the nearby Wheel Inn Tavern, bartender Lisa Large said the power went out and bottles flew off the shelves.

“It slopped all the grease outta the fryer,” she told the Missoulian. “The kitchen's a mess right now.”

Food was knocked off grocery store shelves in Lincoln and Helena.

Mike Stickney, a seismologist at the Earthquake Studies Office with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology in Butte, said the quake was probably the strongest in Montana since October 1964 and was located along the axis of the intermountain seismic belt.

Stickney does not believe the quake was seismically linked to the recent swarm of more than 1,100 smaller earthquakes in and around Yellowstone National Park over the past two weeks.

The initial earthquake's epicenter was about 6 miles (10 kilometres) southeast of Lincoln, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A magnitude 4.9 quake rattled the same general area about five minutes later.

The USGS noted seven other quakes ranging from magnitude 3.5 to 4.4 in the area over the next four hours. Three others followed, with the most recent being a magnitude 3.7 quake at 9:27 a.m.

The USGS received reports of people feeling the initial earthquake throughout Montana and into Idaho, Washington, Wyoming and Canada.

Ray Anderson, 76, told The Associated Press that it was the strongest seismic activity he had ever felt while living in Helena, which is about 34 miles (54 kilometres) away from the quake's epicenter.

He said his wife told him the temblor woke up the dogs.

Musician John Mayer, a part-time Bozeman resident, took to Twitter to marvel at the event.

“Wow,” he wrote on Twitter. “Earthquake in Montana.”

There have been more than 70 quakes measuring larger than 4.5 in Montana and parts of Wyoming and Idaho since 1925, according to the USGS. The largest quake in Montana history was magnitude 7.2 near West Yellowstone in 1959.