Shortly before 10:30 a.m., many Central New Yorkers were surprised to feel the subtle tremors of the ground beneath them. An earthquake that originated from Lebanon, New Jersey, about 45 miles west of New York City, reached a preliminary magnitude of 4.8 on the Richter scale and echoed into the cities of Philadelphia, Boston, and nearly to Buffalo.
Governor Kathy Hochul told reporters she was meeting with her senior staff at the capitol to discuss the budget when they noticed the shaking. She said state emergency officials started searching for potential damage directly after the earthquake.
“We have our structural teams out there, our engineering teams surveying our bridges, our roads, any area there could be a fault line that is not easily detectable,” said Hochul, “to make sure that our passengers on our rails as well as our commuters are safe assessing all state roads.
“You don’t always see the effects of a small crack, that actually could develop into a real major problem. We’re also encouraging all the municipalities throughout the state of New York to assess for any structural integrity concerns.”
As of noon on Friday, state emergency officials did not report seeing any major damage. The last time the state of New York experienced an earthquake of this magnitude was 2011.