Earthquake shakes up social media

COEUR d'ALENE — The earthquake that rumbled through the region Thursday night also shook things up on social media.

Within minutes of the 11:30 p.m. tremor that registered 5.8 on the Richter scale, people throughout Montana, Idaho, eastern Washington and into Canada took to Twitter and Facebook.

They felt something and wanted to know if it was a quake.

“Yes folks, we just had an earthquake. Still checking on the data right now,” said a tweet from the National Weather Service in Missoula.

Centered near Lincoln, Montana, just north of Helena and between Missoula and Great Falls, there were no immediate reports of injuries or serious damage. The temblor knocked food from grocery store shelves in Lincoln and Helena, and patrons at the Wilderness Bar in Lincoln told the Great Falls Tribune stools and glass bottles were knocked over.

In the greater Coeur d'Alene area and Spokane, people reported wall hangings swaying on their hooks, floors shaking and “vibrating furniture.”

“My entire house shook...blinds, chandeliers, etc. animals even sat up,” wrote Amy Sheppard, on The Press Facebook page, facebook.com/CDAPress.

“Entire apartment shook and everything was swaying. Thought my big screen TV was going to fall over. Have felt 2 after shocks also,” posted Dana Bauer, from Coeur d'Alene, also on facebook.com/CDAPress.

“I felt it in Post Falls. My crystal started clinking and my friend and I started looking around wondering what was going on, then the whole house rumbled like it was shivering and it was quiet after that. No aftershocks felt here as far as I could tell,” posted Bronwyn Riley.

Sue Davis of Rathdrum posted that she felt the quake while sitting on her couch.

“I thought it was me being tired, then it kept moving...and I realized what really was going on...what a weird feeling when sitting in the dark staring at your computer!” Davis wrote.

Some shared concerns about the stability of the Yellowstone region.

Mike Stickney, a seismologist at the Earthquake Studies Office with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology in Butte, told the AP he does not believe the quake was seismically linked to the recent swarm of more than 1,100 smaller earthquakes in and around Yellowstone National Park over the past two weeks.

There were several smaller quakes that followed the first one. A magnitude 4.9 quake rattled the same general area about five minutes later. The USGS noted seven other quakes ranging from magnitude 3.5 to 4.4 in the area over the next four hours. Three others followed, with the most recent being a magnitude 3.7 quake at 9:27 a.m.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.