McHenry, Illinois Earthquake of January 31, 2012

I got up that morning to the news that an earthquake has just struck nearby. It only took a moment to find Illinois on the list of recent earthquakes and immediately found the names of a lot of my local towns at the top of the list of responses. When I saw the time I remembered clicking the program guide on the tv just moments after the end of that nights Milwaukee Bucks game and the time said 9:54pm which NOW became the time a 2.4 Magnitude earthquake struck my neighbors practically in downtown McHenry, Illinois one of my local towns I go to Bank of America where I still have an account from my days of working in California you know. There was one lady at my bank who reported having felt the earthquake but the really big news there was my "Personal Banker" friend who recalled me just having said late last year that it has been nearly 2 years since the Northern Illinois area had an earthquake of the type they occasionally get. He was QUICK to point out that I had just said only weeks ago that I thought one was due to strike Northern Illinois in early 2012 and was truely impressed!!! Then there was a lady on the other side of town near the epicenter who told me it felt like a freight train was running under her house and it shook the whole house! Another lady told me her cats ears peaked up first, then she heard thunder, THEN she felt the actual earthquake! Yes, she heard a loud thunder FIRST, because I clearly asked to make sure I had this correct! She lives in the nearby town of Wonder Lake which is a few miles west of McHenry but obviously far enough that the sound traveled to Wonder Lake ahead of the movement of the ground. Finally there was the lady at one of the local resturants very near the epicenter who reported plates and glasses falling on the floor and off the walls at her house, but reported nothing having broken! This 2.4 Richters Magnitude earthquake was reported felt as far north as Sheboygan, Wisconsin. . . as far south as Normal, Illinois, as far as Ypsalinti, Michigan, and Rock Island, Illinois. It is the third major little earthquake this Northern Illinois region has gotten in the past few years and if the line continues north (like continuing along the Fox River) in the direction it is heading. . . could hit Racine, Kenosha, or Milwaukee up in Wisconsin next, or in about another two years!!! EQ Guy