: Lumpy,

: You can lob Mortor Rounds at Lake Anna from
: your place. Do you visit the warm side or
: the cold side. You might want to consider OD
: Green 400 MPH tape on the inside of the
: windows.

: Tom Gator 851

As the crow flies, Tom, it's a touch out of mortar range- (+/- 46 Miles) - and if he hitchhikes, it's prolly 90 or so miles, and the house is on the hot side, right off the south end of the 208 bridge.

just might need some of that there lead-lined 500 mph tape, and lotsa sandbags.

Smack-dab "downtown" Mineral (Population might be a couple of hundred, tops) is 7.5 miles SW of the center-mass of the plant, and the shaker originated about 3 miles beneath town, plus or minus.

Local news says, in Mineral, a lot of stuff fell off walls and grocery store shelves, but no apparent serious damage thus far has been reported, last I know.

Culpeper had more serious damage - from the news.
Reports of a Target Store roof collapse, (location unknown) and a Safeway in Oxon Hill same type damage.

Several cars were totalled in Vienna in a business park, where about the top third of a three story building deposited bricks and an I-beam across their front-ends. I'd not have enjoyed being in any of those cars.

A report from Maryland (unknown where) was that a large tree toppled on a house, virtually totalling it.

Still, no reports of any injuries. My son, Mike, being a local firefighter, I'd have heard something if any very bad news hit, even if it didn't make the mainstream or local news.

(by the way, Mike just texted me his grid coordinates from his first campsite on a four-day backpacking hike from Glacier National Park -
where the grizzly got ( and almost GOT a hiker about ten days ago ( he somehow escaped with monor injuries). I'm more afraid for Mike than for anyone around here. v

****** short-story below*****

A lot of folks around here didn't even feel it.
Hell, I didn't feel the shake, but the sound waves inside Lowes yesterday were equivalent to being next to a detonating one-double-deuce, very closeby, but a continuing rumble for twenty to thirty seconds.

and yes, I have stocked up on Depends

The shaker updated - two or three aftershocks last night, at 8:04 pm, a 4.8 at Mineral ("ground zero"), felt in Stafford at about 8:05 as a 4.2, and even though that's only about ten miles in a straight line from here, again, I didn't feel a thing.

A guy in know just west of Torrington, CT, was changing some tires on his truck in the driveway.
He says the ground vibrated a little up there, and he has friends somewhere in southern Vermont who felt it to some degree.

Reports on FOX yesterday were about a major fault line just north of Richmond, which apparently was involved; scientists have said that this particular fault is structurally very different from both the San Andreas (Calikookafornia) and the New Madrid (MO/KS ??) in that the structure out there lends itself to rolling (undulating?) earthquakes, and this one just goes BANG !!
Hoping here it runs out of boolits.

So, Supposedly, it was felt from Atlanta to New England, and as far west as Michigan.

ok,that's all I "know" right now. Some may be just
very cheap gossip...

Dr. Seismo,
OUT

***reminds me of a cute story - pardon me, I'm not much of a stpry teller ( I LIE well - but - pardon me, all this is paraphrased)

so, .. a hiker at some National Park in grizzly country reports having seen a sign at the trailhead describing sign (their poops) to watch for to determine of various bears might be there..

on the sign, some good advice: BEAR COUNTRY- make sure you bring a "bear bell" (it tells the bears you're in the area, and they will generall leave before you see them) AND bear spray - pepper spray specially concocted just for this use. it makes CS seem and cop pepper spray seems like Nothing.

black (small and not too much of a threat); brown(larger, sort of a little cousin to the griz, but still dangerous;
and THE GRIZZLY, large to HUGE, and a certified bad-ass.

so, black bear poops: small piles, and usually contains shreds of wild nuts and berries.

brown bear: larger piles, maybe some nuts and berries, and a few small animal bones.

GRIZZLY: huge piles, likely containing all of the above, PLUS bear bells, and smells like pepper spray.