Skip to content
News
Link copied to clipboard

Quake leaves Philly rattled but unscathed

MOTHER EARTH must have thought we needed a distraction - something shaky but harmless, like an amusement-pier ride - to ponder for a few hours in a world otherwise wracked with trouble.

MOTHER EARTH must have thought we needed a distraction - something shaky but harmless, like an amusement-pier ride - to ponder for a few hours in a world otherwise wracked with trouble.

Why else would she rock our world with the 5.8-magnitude earthquake centered just north of Richmond, Va., which rumbled through here just before 2 p.m. yesterday?The U.S. military is stretched into three wars. The only national consensus seems to fall on blaming problems on the other guy. The state is broke, not to mention the rest of us. And the city wants to hit the state up for a little something, something to carry us to payday.

So sit back and shake for 10 seconds or so. Then spend a couple of hours talking about how we all felt that feeling. There's nobody to blame for it. And you don't even have to buy a ticket.

5th and Walnut

Mark Pfiffner was prepared to lead his people to safety in case of fire. He knew how to respond to a bomb scare or a shelter-in-place drill.

"But I never trained specifically for this," he said.

He was a quick study. Before you could say tremor, Pfiffner had donned his reflector vest, grabbed his bullhorn and walkie-talkie and was ready to lead workers from the 10th floor of the Beneficial Building.

Pfiffner, volunteer captain for his floor, was on a conference call with other Ace American Insurance offices in the region when the earth shook.

"The woman in Wilmington felt her building shake," Pfiffner said. "A few minutes later, the lady in New York felt it."

Pfiffner, still in his reflective vest, waited across the street from the building for the all-clear with the crew from the 10th floor.

"We didn't exactly follow protocol," Pfiffner admitted. "But nobody panicked. I imagine this will be the focus of our next meeting on the subject."

Woodbury, Gloucester County

Cops, firefighters, cameras and gawkers. It was all too much for John Williams, a Vietnam Vet with shrapnel in his leg and memories of big California quakes.

"There's got to be 20 people out here for this. For a little brick," the 62-year-old Woodbury resident said. "My taxes are paying for all this."

The brick in question, actually called "debris" by first responders, fell from the upper reaches of the G.G. Green building, a former opera house and movie theater built in 1880.

Williams admitted he hightailed it out of his job at the chemical refinery in nearby Bridgeport when he felt the ground shaking. "That's a refinery, though," he said. "When things go bad there, they can really go bad."

Officials said they'll seal a window where debris fell and further test the building's integrity. To Williams, that sounded like more taxes. "I could see if something big happened, then they would need to be here," he said. "But nothing really happened."

Eagles locker room

"Am I in Cali?" cornerback Joselio Hanson wondered aloud. As a resident of the Golden State, Hanson grasped the situation right away, while some momentarily wondered if they were dizzy or if there had been some sort of explosion. The floor shuddered and the hanging, long-stemmed light fixtures swayed violently.

Trent Cole burst out of the shower area swathed in towels but sopping wet.

"Holy bleep!" he yelled. "Did you feel that bleeping bleep? Bleep, that's some bleep. I ain't never felt no bleep like that bleep." And so on.

Broad and Vine

Yesterday's quake was brief and relatively minor here, but the terror was real for some residents and workers who - understandably - didn't know what the hell was going on. With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaching, some feared the worst.

Terri Jones, a surgery scheduler at Hahnemann University Hospital, darted out of the building onto Broad Street shortly after the rumbling began. Center City sidewalks were packed almost immediately, even outside buildings that didn't officially evacuate.

"My computer screen started shaking, like four times. Then it stopped. Then it did it again," said Jones, of Yeadon Borough. "My daughter was in New York for 9/11; she saw the second tower fall, so I grabbed my purse and got out of there."

"And me, too," said co-worker Brenda Sanders, of South Philly. "She grabbed my pocketbook and said, 'Let's go.' "

16th and Walnut

The shaking led to quite a drill in Jonathan D. Volinsky's dental offices on the sixth floor of the Medical Arts Building.

"I was working on a specific quadrant in a patient's mouth and wondering if I was causing any discomfort," said dental hygienist Jennifer Lanzetta. "The patient was quite calm, but she said, 'Why are you putting so much pressure on me?'

"I truly thought that she was rocking in her chair. I stopped my work. I looked down and said, 'Are you OK?' She said, 'I'm OK. . . . You were so focused. I can't believe you didn't cut my tongue or my cheek.' "

City Hall

Shaking desk chairs and vibrating floors sent city workers flooding out into the streets surrounding City Hall and the Municipal Services Building.

"Our chairs were shaking, trembling," said Arlene Henry, who works in the city human-resources department on the 15th floor of the Municipal Services Building. "I thought it was just me. Then I thought, I've got to get out of here."

Some feared the worst.

"My initial reaction was it was an explosion," said Public Property Commissioner Joan Schlotterbeck, who was in her office on the seventh floor of City Hall.

Others brushed it off.

"I thought it was a little quakelet," said Deputy Mayor for Transportation and Utilities Rina Cutler, who was in San Francisco for the 1989 earthquake.

In the end, no serious injuries or damage were reported in city buildings, said Mayor Nutter, who sent workers back to their jobs about 3 p.m. Later, Nutter quickly turned his attention to more important matters.

"The Phillies are playing this evening," Nutter said "We look forward to kicking the Mets' butt."

Rittenhouse Square

Brandon White never claimed to be the most grounded jazz musician in Philly.

So you'll have to excuse him for wailing away on his alto sax in the square, eyes shut and completely oblivious to the story being told a thousand ways all around him."Oh, that was an earthquake?" the goateed 25-year-old said between tunes. "I felt the shaking, but I thought I was just trippin.' "

The Germantown resident was deep into a version of Duke Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood" when he started to lose his balance ever so slightly, but he didn't stop playing.

"I play with my eyes shut, and I really thought it was just me," White chuckled. "Like my equilibrium was off or something."

20th and Market

If you were parked there illegally around 1:50 p.m. yesterday, the earthquake may have saved you a few bucks.

"People were running out of buildings on Market Street, panicking," said parking-enforcement officer Lillian DeVaughn. "I was like, 'Oh my God, maybe the world is going to end!' "

In which case, the Philadelphia Parking Authority would cease to exist, too. Angels rejoice.

Anyway, the PPA doesn't have a strict policy for ticket-writing during earthquakes, but DeVaughn said common sense calls for a brief grace period if vehicle owners are running from shaking buildings.

"You don't do that," DeVaughn said. "You'd have to be heartless."

And DeVaughn has a heart. But don't expect her to cut you any slack today.

- Staff writers Elmer Smith, Jason Nark, William Bender, David Preston, Les Bowen and Catherine Lucey contributed to this report.