Earthquake shakes up East Coast

The most powerful earthquake to strike the East Coast in more than 60 years cracked the Washington Monument and was felt all along the East Coast as far north as New York and as far south as Pike, Lamar and Upson counties.”I live in Chesapeake and it was the craziest thing I’d ever experienced. It was like a ripple went across the cement floor and the walls were moving. Thankfully it wasn’t any worse. However, I’m freaked out to say the least,’ Meredith Bennett, formerly of Barnesville, posted on the barnesville.com website shortly after the quake. Bennett said cell phone service was down but she was able to call out on a landline to check on her daughter, Mary Clara, and talk to her mother in Barnesville.’It was so weird, because we thought somebody was on the roof of the building or a car had hit the building. We didn’t really have time to evacuate. We were still trying to figure out what was going on,’ she said. ‘We never thought it could have been an earthquake. The walls and shades on the windows shook and there was a ripple feeling across the cement floor. I can’t imagine living where it happens all the time and I think that’s why everyone is so freaked out in this area. We get hurricanes, not earthquakes.’