Friday’s earthquake did cause much damage in historic Philly – NBC10 Philadelphia

The city of Philadelphia is one of the oldest in the United States and we still have homes standing that were built in the 1700s, but experts we spoke with say that Friday’s 4.8 magnitude earthquake likely did not cause extensive damage to property.

They did warn some property owners that they should look for any new cracks.

Following Friday’s earthquake, trains came to a halt as people evacuated buildings, including City Hall.

It was all a reaction to an event we don’t usually see in the region very often.

“It was a magnitude 4.8. It’s a fairly small event. But it shakes people up. And people are always surprised when they happen in the East Coast,” the director of the Earthquake Science Center at the U.S. Geological Survey Christine Goulet said.

Goulet says the impact of an East Coast earthquake is usually the large area that actually feels the ground shake.

“Anything that happens, say, east of the Rockies, the Earth’s crust is different, and the waves propagate much farther than they would do if you’re in California,” she explained.

The physical impact related to injuries or structural issues shouldn’t be much.

At an afternoon press conference, city officials said that they only received one report of property damage in the northeast section of the city and that incident is being investigated.

Despite Philadelphia being an old city with old infrastructure, structural engineer professor at Drexel University, Abi Aghayere, says this earthquake likely didn’t cause too much damage.

“You might have things falling off the shelf. You might have, you know, things shaking in the building,” Professor Aghayere said.

He explained that buildings and homes these days are all built following seismic codes. As for older buildings, he recommends looking for any new or elongated cracks.

“Those buildings may not be updated, to the newer codes. So they have brittle materials like unreinforced masonry. That’s that’s the one I would be concerned about,” he said.

Aghayere says that larger infrastructure such as bridges are routinely inspected. However, he did say it’s every two years for bridges and would recommend those get checked out as well, just to be safe.