Quake rouses slumbering residents

LINCOLN — An earthquake strong enough to rouse sleeping residents more than 100 miles from its epicenter struck Western Montana early Thursday.

A magnitude 5.8 earthquake hit at 12:30 a.m. about 6 miles southeast of Lincoln, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A magnitude 4.9 quake rattled the same general area about five minutes later.

The USGS noted seven other quakes ranging from magnitude 3.5 to 4.4 in the area over the next four hours. Three others followed, including a magnitude 3.7 quake at 9:27 a.m.

The USGS received reports of people feeling the initial earthquake throughout Montana and into Idaho, Washington, Wyoming and Canada.

There were no immediate reports of injuries, but food was knocked off the shelves at grocery stores in Lincoln and Helena.

The earthquake hit along the Lewis and Clark fault line that stretches from northern Idaho to east of Helena, the USGS noted in its analysis. The Lewis and Clark line is as wide as 50 miles in spots.

Mike Stickney, a seismologist at the Earthquake Studies Office with the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology in Butte, said the quake was probably the strongest in Montana since October 1964 and was located along the axis of the intermountain seismic belt.

Stickney does not believe the quake is seismically linked to the recent swarm of more than 1,100 smaller earthquakes in and around Yellowstone National Park over the past two weeks.

Flathead 911 dispatchers answered a total of 83 phone calls in the 15 minutes after the initial quake.

Residents in Flathead, Lake and Lincoln Counties took to the internet immediately after the quake happened and recorded their impressions. The Daily Inter Lake’s post on Facebook elicited dozens of reactions within minutes.

A reader in Bigfork said her daughter woke up from a dead sleep. Someone in Spokane reported that it was “enough for the doors to sway, bed to shake and cat to start howling.”

“We are on Teakettle Mountain and this was the worst quake in 16 years,” Stephen Smith posted.

Darlene Cecil posted from Many Lakes near Creston, “The bed was shaking and creaking and the wind chimes on the deck were ringing away.”

Rochelle MacArthur in Whitefish called the quake “kinda eerie” and reported that the power went out briefly.

Sarah Gilbert said she woke up at the Smith Valley fire station “with my bunk jumping around. That’s the worst I’ve felt since I moved here 12 years ago.”

Libby residents reported feeling the impact almost 175 air miles away.

“[It] shook our log cabin for at least 30 seconds [and] made a crystal I have hanging in window spin violently,” posted Joan Best on Facebook, who wrote she lives 3 miles south of Libby.

Becca Louise posted that she at first thought the shaking earth was caused by a train passing through.

“It quickly became clear there was no train,” she wrote. “It was an intense rumble that shook the house. [It] reminded me of the kind of shock I felt realizing I was in a tornado.”

Near the epicenter, eight patrons at the Wilderness Bar in Lincoln headed for the doors as stools and glass bottles started falling over.

“I just jumped over the bar and pretty much landed in a guy’s lap,” bartender Sheri Deluca told the Great Falls Tribune.

At the nearby Wheel Inn Tavern, bartender Lisa Large said the power went out and bottles flew off the shelves.

“It slopped all the grease outta the fryer,” she told the Missoulian. “The kitchen’s a mess right now.”

NorthWestern Energy said the quake triggered a power outage in the Lincoln area that affected about 1,350 NorthWestern customers. The outage was reported at 12:30 a.m., the same time as the earthquake hit. Power was restored to the Lincoln area about 1:15 a.m. Inspections at a substation about 6 miles east of Lincoln revealed no damage to the substation. The quake caused no known damage to the utility’s electric and natural-gas system.

NorthWestern also fielded a few calls from the Helena area reporting natural-gas odors shortly after the quake, but investigation found no damage to the natural-gas system.

Emergency officials in the Lincoln area are urging residents to inspect their homes and other property for possible damage caused by the earthquake, including pipes, water heaters and furnace exhaust systems.

At Polson, Energy Keepers Inc. reported no damage at the SKQ dam following the quake. Personnel was on site conducting an inspection of the infrastructure Thursday morning.

Dennis Philmon at the Hungry Horse Dam also reported no damage to the structure on the Hungry Horse Reservoir. He said the magnitude and distance from the epicenter didn’t reach the levels that would require an inspection.

“That’s a good thing,” he said.

There have been more than 70 quakes measuring larger than 4.5 in Montana and parts of Wyoming and Idaho since 1925, according to the USGS. The largest quake in Montana history was magnitude 7.3 near West Yellowstone in 1959.

When earthquakes occur, Flathead 911 encourages people to report any injuries or damage by calling 911.

However, if people simply wish to report that an earthquake occurred or are only looking for information, it is requested that they call non-emergency lines or check the U.S. Geological Survey website at www.earthquake.usgs.gov.