Woke up at 5:35 to the wonderful shaking of windows and lights. Knocked a cup off of the table next to me.

Peliminary reports are pointing to a 5.4 magnitude earthquake about 41 miles northwest of Evansville.

Magnitude 5.4 (Preliminary magnitude — subject to revision)
Date-Time Friday, April 18, 2008 at 09:36:57 UTC
Friday, April 18, 2008 at 04:36:57 AM at epicenter

Location 38.501°N, 87.898°W
Depth 10 km (6.2 miles) set by location program
Region ILLINOIS
Distances 10 km (6 miles) ESE (103°) from West Salem, IL
10 km (6 miles) NE (55°) from Bone Gap, IL
13 km (8 miles) N (4°) from Bellmont, IL
39 km (24 miles) WSW (239°) from Vincennes, IN
66 km (41 miles) NNW (333°) from Evansville, IN
204 km (127 miles) E (93°) from St. Louis, MO

Location Uncertainty Error estimate not available
Parameters NST=021, Nph=021, Dmin=263.2 km, Rmss=1.07 sec, Gp=119°,
M-type=moment magnitude (Mw), Version=1
Source West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center/NOAA/NWS

Event ID at00851141

This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.

It takes allot to wake me up, and this woke me up. I don't ever want to go through one again.

We're over here real close to it in Olney. Took me a long time to figure out what was going on. My mom is St Louis and it was pretty strong there. Will have to find out if my girlfriend and her family in Iowa felt it. We felt a slight aftershock shortly after the quake by about 5 minutes or so.

I'm in Marion, In, about 230 miles Northeast of the epicenter and it shook the building here. I pray that everyone is all right.

Columbus here and it woke me up. By the time I got my senses about me it was basically over. I thought I felt an aftershock too.... but I had taken sleep medication last night so i didn't know if I was still loopy from it.

It got my attention here in Anderson. Felt both the tremor as well as th aftershock. Let's hope everyone is fine and maybe only slight property damage.

Ironically, i've been reading a book about David Crockett and he was talking about "the shakes," which followed the New Madrid,Mo., Earthquake of about 1811 and 1812. The original quake was so strong the Mississippi River ran backwards for a while and rang chuch bells in Philadephia. Crockett settled in a region of western Tennessee that was radically reshaped by the eartquake and tremors, and happened to be great for hunting bears.

When I was a reporter at the Princeton, Ind., Daily Clarion 25 years ago, I did reports about a major event along the New Madrid fault lines being overdue.

Jim Morrison

I received a text message from my daughter in Evansville, she says all is well there. As for Trent I am fairly sure he slept through it!

HOLY :censor: Not what i need to hear as we are about 1 hour away from heading to Gas City.