It’s a big day for New Yorkers and their fellow East Coast counterparts, who started off the morning with an invigorating 4.8 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter radiating out from New Jersey. Or, for California transplants like myself, it’s just another Friday.
While some urban dwellers may have initially passed off the rattling as the work of nearby construction sites or their heavy-footed upstairs neighbors, New York Governor Kathy Hochul confirmed the quake on X: “A 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit west of Manhattan and has been felt throughout New York. My team is assessing impacts and any damage that may have occurred, and we will update the public throughout the day.”
While I can’t imagine the said “damage” amounting to anything more than perhaps a tipped trashcan or a felled picture frame, a geologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory talked to the New York Times about the rarity of such a tremor in the northeast—especially as it pertains to the Ramapo fault zone that runs across New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
“There’s been nothing close to this for a long time,” Dr. Folarin Kolawole told the outlet. The last known quake within the Ramapo fault system happened in 1957, with a comparable magnitude of 3.8. Kolawole added, “So this is large and significant.”
In addition to fueling East Coast seismologists’ research, today’s incident also gave Tri-State residents a rare opportunity to experience a feeling that Californians have long reveled in: collectively tweeting about their individual earthquake experiences.
Celebrities like Rachel Zegler, Jessica Chastain, and Busy Phillips have all weighed in, and already the quake memes are evolving at a speed that can only be matched by seismic waves. We’ve rounded up some of the best reactions below.
As an associate editor at HarpersBAZAAR.com, Chelsey keeps a finger on the pulse on all things celeb news. She also writes on social movements, connecting with activists leading the fight on workers' rights, climate justice, and more. Offline, she’s probably spending too much time on TikTok, rewatching Emma (the 2020 version, of course), or buying yet another corset.
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