Or, an excessively literal test of the Broken Windows fallacy.
An earthquake registering 5.9 on the Richter scale centered in Virginia and felt in the Washington DC area and right up the east coast of the United States. From the New York Times:
Buildings throughout major metropolitan centers in the northeast were evacuated after the quake, and tremors were felt as far north as Concord, N.H., and as far south as Hampstead, N.C., with some limited reports of damage reported near the quake’s epicenter in Virginia.
The streets of downtown Washington filled with thousands of people on Tuesday afternoon as buildings from the capital to the White House were evacuated.
The NYT added that some buildings in Midtown New York have been evacuated. (Not ours, sadly – Ed.)
As for trading floors, seems all is fine with no interruptions that we’re aware of, though the Nymex was evacuated for 20 minutes. A spokesman told us that “there was no impact that I’m aware of and the market remained open during the earthquake. There was no official evacuation during the earthquake, though some employees felt the need to go outside. They have come back in since.”
For rolling commentary — should you need such a thing — we recommend the Atlantic live-blog, which just informed us that New York City has been given the “all clear” by the fire department.
Also:
– According to the AP, it’s nothing to worry about, but the epicenter of the quake appears to be near a nuclear facility:
The quake rocked Virginia just before 1:55 p.m., and authorities said the epicenter appeared to be in Louisa County, about 40 miles northwest of Richmond. The epicenter is not far from Dominion Virginia Power’s North Anna nuclear plant, where the earthquake knocked out power, but the utility manually shut down both nuclear units without incident and no damage was apparent, the utility said.
– Here’s a map showing its epicenter:
– Airports delayed some flights earlier, but it seems they’re now going back up.
– It’s been a while since the Virgina area has had an earthquake like this…
It is the largest earthquake to be recorded in the state of Virgina since another M5.9 quake was recorded in 1897.
… but the LA Time writes that nearby Maryland had a smaller one last July.
– We’ve been seeing a lot of snark from West Coasters, but The Atlantic points out that the California-Nevada area has had 339 earthquakes this week.
Meanwhile, a few Overheards from inside the FT newsroom:
– “Cardiff thinks I’m nuts, but I think Treasuries just rallied on the earthquake.”
(Correct… Cardiff thinks you’re nuts. Then again, he is now referring to himself in the third person, so maybe he’s a little off too.)
– “Does this have anything to do with Bank of America?”
– “Can’t believe how much time people are wasting on Twitter making jokes… Wait, I just thought of one.” (Resumed tweeting.)
UPDATE: We’ve just received the following email from management:
There was a 5.8 earthquake hit in Richmond, VA tremors were felt up the east coast and in New York City, I spoke with building security and management, building and infrastructure is intact, please continue with normal daily activities, if anything changes we will be in touch.
Presumably, then, we will be contacted if the building and infrastructure cease to remain intact. Very comforting, we must say.