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CNN Live Saturday

Earthquake Jolts American Northeast

Aired April 20, 2002 - 12:18   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: On now to the earthquake in the northeast this morning. It was a rude walk-up call. An unusually strong earthquake centered in New York State and it stuck at 6:50 a.m. local time, and it was felt from Buffalo to Baltimore. Reporter Kathy Reynolds with affiliate station WPTZ is standing by live in Keeseville, New York with some of the details.

Hi there.

KATHY REYNOLDS, WPTZ CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fredricka. This is just one of the areas where the road has collapsed. DOT workers tell me that there was a spring running underneath the road and when the earthquake hit, the rumbling shook the mud loose and the 25 to 30 feet of road on top of it just gave way.

Now, fortunately, so far, no report of injuries but power is out in other parts of Essex County. In the town of Jay, there is some structural damage. Part of the roof on the town office building has collapsed and several businesses on Main Street sustained damage, including Deek's (ph) Pharmacy, which lost its front window and the 20 Main Bar.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some glasses, bottles of liqueur were broken. Some (UNINTELLIGIBLE) kegs of beer, glasses came off of the bar and opened up three kegs of beer and dumped it all over in there. So it's a pretty heavy smell and a bottle of liquid mess to be picked up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REYNOLDS: All businesses say they will reopen this evening and power should be restored at 6:00 tonight. But Essex County Emergency Services say it will take a while to assess the damage.

Just look at this crack. It's making the road very unstable and passing traffic is not helping the matter. If this crack gets any bigger, they will have to shut the road down completely -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right, thanks very much. Kathy Reynolds with an affiliate, WPTZ, in Keeseville, New York. We appreciate it.

While officials tally the damages from the quake, experts are measuring its impact. Frank Revetta is director of the Northern New York's Seismological Center and he joins us now by phone from Potsdam, New York.

Thanks very much, Frank, for joining us.

FRANK REVETTA, DIRECTOR, NEW YORK SEISMOLOGICAL CENTER: OK, thank you.

WHITFIELD: Well, this isn't the first time the New York area has experienced an earthquake, but this certainly is a rather sizable one. I've got notes here that say back in 1944, you had an earthquake that measured 5.8. This one, this morning, 5.1. Why such a significant earthquake in that region?

REVETTA: Well, we really don't know for sure what causes the earthquakes in this area. I'm expecting it's big earthquakes. Now, we have been -- we report a lot of small earthquakes that are around 2 to 4 and we don't have large earthquakes like this very often. And this is the only third one that's been in the fives that I know of up here.

And so, it isn't like there's a major fault going across this area and the earthquakes are occurring along it, like there is in California. It's not that way. The earthquakes here occur in areas where we don't see any faults that are causing them. So if there are faults causing them, they're probably beneath the surface and they don't reach the surface.

So this is just a seismic belt, which extends from the Adirondack Mountain across the St. Lawrence Valley into western New York. And really, I'll have to admit that I don't think we really know for sure why we have these earthquakes in this belt.

WHITFIELD: Now, what about aftershocks? Sometimes that can bring more damage than the initial earthquake itself.

REVETTA: Well, normally that doesn't happen though. Normally, the aftershocks are smaller and they don't cause any damage. That's usually the case. And they decrease after a time even though they can go on for years. They usually decrease after -- in frequency after a short time.

So you don't normally have aftershocks -- cause more damage, but you can. It can happen. In fact, sometimes you get an earthquake that's an aftershock that's bigger than the first one. You know what I mean. That can happen at times. That's happened in the past, which means that, you know, there's -- a bigger earthquake could occur after this one. If it did, then this would be a foreshock and the other one would be the biggest one.

WHITFIELD: Yeah.

REVETTA: But normally, the case is, you have a big earthquake like this and then this followed by a lot of aftershocks. And it's really by studying the aftershocks that you really learn a lot about the earthquakes, like how deep was it, what kind of fault produced it and how -- you know all that sort of stuff is learned from studying the aftershocks that occur after the main earthquake. WHITFIELD: Well, I know seismologists such as yourself will really be studying this one because this was a freaky morning for a lot folks in the northeast.

REVETTA: Yeah, well, I...

WHITFIELD: Thanks for...

REVETTA: Yeah.

WHITFIELD: Again, thanks very much, Frank Revetta for joining us, director of the Northern New York Seismological Center. And we're glad to report that there have been no reported injuries, just some very strange damage, as you saw in some of the pictures earlier. Thanks a lot.

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