PORT ANGELES — An earthquake near Vancouver Island jarred many but left the North Olympic Peninsula and British Columbia unscathed.
More than 300 Peninsula residents reported bumps and rattles when a 4.8-magnitude temblor born deep in the earth hit near Vancouver Island at about 11:39 p.m. Tuesday, according to the University of Washington’s Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN), which has two seismometers in the Sequim area.
“There were only a few seconds of shaking,” PNSN spokesman Bill Steele said Wednesday.
Kyle Ellis, 33, of Port Angeles was watching television when two lamps on the side of his couch shook.
“It just felt like a wave,” he recalled Wednesday. “I guess my whole house shook.”
He said he wasn’t scared.
“But it kind of threw me for a bit,” Ellis added.
No tsunami watches were in effect across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Steele said that at 32 miles down, the quake was too deep to generate monster wave action, “way too deep.”
Nor did emergency services personnel report any damage, Clallam County and Jefferson County public safety officials said.
Steele said the earthquake’s core radiated from about 32 to 36 miles north of Port Angeles near Sydney in waters off the Saanich Peninsula and 12.5 miles north of Victoria.
“You are looking at an intensity of shaking all in the weak-to-light range,” Steele said.
But he added that visitors flooded the network’s website (www.pnsn.org) with 12,000 earthquake “felt-it” reports.
“This was picked up across the entire Pacific Northwest,” Steele said.
There were 310 felt-it reports from Clallam and Jefferson counties.
There were 146 from Port Angeles, 86 from Sequim and 49 from Port Townsend.
Four came from Forks and two from Clallam Bay.
“You can assume that the actual number of people who felt it was much higher,” Steele said.
They did not include Paul Beck, who lives on Lake Farm Road east of Port Angeles and about a mile east of Deer Park.
“We felt nothing,” Beck said Wednesday.
Others did.
People in Port Ludlow and as far away as Olympia and Bellingham reported feeling the quake on the U.S. Geological Survey website (www.usgs.gov).
Randy Baldwin, a geophysicist with the USGS, told KOMO News of Seattle the quake was felt for a radius of 150 miles.
It was the largest earthquake in the Northwest in more than a decade, according to KIRO-TV of Seattle.
Buildings shook in Victoria, the Victoria Times Colonist said.
The quake was felt along the southern British Columbia coast and throughout Vancouver Island, according to Canadian news sources.
Earthquake Canada said Tuesday night that there had been no reports of damage, and “none would be expected,” according to CBC News of British Columbia.
That confirmed what Steele had heard.
“I’ve heard no reports of damage other than things falling off shelves,” he said.
In Anacortes, some neighbors reported a few pictures knocked off shelves due to the shaking, according to KOMO News.
Clallam County sheriff’s dispatcher Susan Craig said those who called 9-1-1 were primarily concerned about a tsunami.
Clallam County Undersheriff Ron Cameron, also the county’s emergency manager, said no damage was reported — “not at all.”
He said county officials are alerted when earthquakes of at least 5.5 magnitude hit the area.
Bob Hamlin, Jefferson County emergency management coordinator, said there was “absolutely no damage at all” from the temblor.
“The calls were pretty much the same,” Hamlin said.
Callers spoke of a two- or three-second event.
“Some people said it was more of a jar than others did,” Hamlin said.
“It was actually a good wake-up call.
“Things do happen.”
Steele said the earthquake was equal to the 4.8-magnitude temblor near Poulsbo in 2003.
The Nisqually earthquake of February 2001 was a magnitude of 6.8.
Steele said Tuesday’s quake did not emanate from the 620-mile-long offshore fault known as the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
That’s the connection point, or lock zone, of the North American tectonic plate and the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate.
They grind together 18.5 to 37 miles below the Earth’s surface, including Clallam and Jefferson counties.
Experts predict that a massive quake, perhaps more than 9.0 magnitude, occurs every 300 to 500 years on the Cascadia Subduction Zone — although no one can say when the next will happen.
Tuesday’s temblor originated in the Juan de Fuca plate.
The ocean slab is breaking apart below the North American plate.
Cameron and Hamlin noted that planning is underway for an earthquake and tsunami exercise beginning June 7.
“Cascadia Rising” will include participation from the Washington National Guard and other state agencies.
It also will involve agencies from Oregon, Northern California and British Columbia.
The officials are planning a response to a rupturing of the Cascadia Subduction Zone.
The Cascadia Fault last snapped in 1700.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
Executive Editor Leah Leach contributed to this report.
