The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
I blame Lex Luthor for the quake
“That’s great, it starts with an earthquake …”
I mean, how do I start a column about earthquakes with anything but those REM lyrics?
Sure, many of you started humming Carole King’s “I Feel the Earth Move” or Prince’s “Housequake” or Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” but my mind went straight to “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” because it has the bonus of a line that sums up how East Coast journalists tend to respond to tectonic plates shoving each other like siblings grabbing for the last frosted strawberry Pop-Tart. “Reporters baffled …”
Yes, we apparently are when it comes to quakes.
“What’s Shaking? That’s New Jersey!” a Garden State news outlet posted.
Exhibit 2,863 of why I hate exclamation points. An earthquake ain’t a party folks (unless you’re Prince).
Other outlets tripped over each other asking for videos and photos of the quake. “Who takes photos of a rattle that lasted eight seconds?” I initially thought. Of course, I keep forgetting that some people keep their cameras on 24/7.
My reportorial instincts kicked in immediately, as I took a screen capture of the clock on my phone to document 10:24 a.m. as the time of the quake. That may seem useless, but check out how many reports cite it as occurring “around 10:20” or “at about 10:30.”
An earthquake Friday, the moon blotting out the sun Monday, “The Donald and Joe Show” for the next 212 days … How many world’s-ending hints do we need?
The quake did serve as a literal reminder that there are no true lines between our communities. It was the rare event that brought Nutmeggers together (well, that and bemoaning the UConn women’s basketball team losing in the NCAA semifinals Friday night). And everyone seemed happy to add “I survived an earthquake” to their bucket list.
Thankfully, everything from Connecticut’s nuclear power plant to the birds’ nests in my yard seemed to weather the quake without suffering foundational damage. Once we learned that the epicenter of the 4.8 temblor was around Tewksbury, N.J., my mind pivoted to conspiracy theories. Jersey hadn’t seen a quake this strong in more than 240 years, except in the movies.
So I blame Lex Luthor. Back in 1978’s “Superman” (still the best Superfilm), Lex vexes the Big Blue Boy Scout by aiming one nuclear device at the San Andreas Fault in California and the other at Hackensack, N.J. Supes fulfills a pledge and saves Hackensack first (I call plot hole).
My conspiracy theory Friday was that this was all just a plug for the next Superman reboot. Hollywood will do anything to market a movie. Back in 1974, it created Sensurround, a method to rattle moviegoers during screenings of “Earthquake” (it was all about the bass). They should probably revive it in Citi Field to wake up the Mets.
There are no more photos documenting past earthquakes in New England than there were Friday (in other words, future historians, you’ll have to take our word for it).
A dig through our newspaper archives suggests a major one occurred in 1568 at what is now the Moodus section of East Haddam. Moodus is derived from the Algonquian name, “Matchitmoodus” or “the place of bad noises” as a result of frequent rumblings (the town’s Nathan Hale-Ray High School’s teams are “the Noises”). A 3.0 quake was recorded near Moodus in 1982.
The most devastating documented quake in New England was on Nov. 18, 1755, when accounts describe the skies as raining bricks as virtually every chimney in Boston was demolished. An eyewitness’s narrative, revisited in The Stamford Advocate in 1907, describes it as lasting for five minutes and creating a sonic soundtrack of “several carriages rattling over pavements.”
People reportedly ran into the streets at 4:30 a.m. believing it to be “the last day or the judgment” and claiming to hear the trumpet of Gabriel sounding. Dead fish rose to the waters’ surface (so at least there was plenty to nosh on at the earthquake survival party).
Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rod became a lightning rod for conspiracy theorists. Church leaders blamed Franklin’s discovery of 1752 for drawing the wrath of God.
The eyewitness observed that during the quake “many knees smote together.”
Did anyone’s knees smote Friday?
If so, could you send me a photo?