Did you feel the earth move? Central Mass. residents react to earthquake

The United States Geological Society confirmed an earthquake hit parts of the Northeast early Friday, with residents of Central Massachusetts among those feeling the effects.

On social media, there are numerous reports from Worcester that houses shook shortly before 10:30 a.m.

At Mount Carmel Apartments off Shrewsbury Street, residents reported that their furniture moved, prompting the Fire Department to converge on the building. There was no reported damage.

The USGS said a magnitude 4.8 earthquake was recorded in New Jersey earlier.

More: 4.8 magnitude earthquake rattles NYC, New Jersey: Live updates

Monique Gisele Morimoto of Worcester, who lives near the airport, was in her home office when the earthquake hit, as if a truck had hit the side of the house, she said. The shaking lasted three to four seconds, with the pull cords on the kitchen ceiling fan waving back and forth.

”The earthquake, plus the storm we had, and the upcoming eclipse," she said. "Things are changing, and there are dynamics in the world that we are not in control of.”

Police in the region are getting inquiries from residents about the rumbling.

"Please do not call 911, at this time we are not aware of any emergencies caused by the mild rattling," Auburn police wrote on social media.

A magnitude 3.6 earthquake was recorded in Massachusetts in 2020.

In Webster, Chuck Morse knew the brief shaking of his house was more than heavy winds.

"It's got that roll to it," he said, explaining the feel of the morning earthquake.

It was over in seconds, he said, but long enough to leave him a bit unsettled. It's the second earthquake he's experienced in recent years.

"I'll take the hurricane and the blizzards," said Morse, a football coach. "You can shovel your way out of that."

Jeanne Martin, a resident of Wedgewood Road in Worcester, said she was watching TV Friday morning when the house began to shake. She feared the TV would fall from its stand.

“It’s a beautiful TV. I didn’t want it to fall,” she said.

Deborah Pojani of Southborough lives in a 200-year-old house, post and beam, and has become accustomed to rattling when trucks drive by. When the rattling continued and a door latch became undone, she grew concerned.

"This is extreme. OK, wait a minute, this is not a truck," she said.

At St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Christine McNamara, a medical secretary, initially thought a co-worker was mischievously shaking her chair. Then she pondered whether it was a train traveling through the tunnel at the hospital. Or a nearby construction project.

"It was the weirdest thing," she said.

Shortly after the earthquake, emergency crews were dispatched to Mount Carmel Apartments after residents reported considerable shaking of the building.

Betty Tedesco and Mary Villa live on the fourth and fifth floor of the apartment building, respectively. The two women were on the phone talking to each other when they felt the building shake.

“So I’m sitting here, talking to Betty on the phone, and all of a sudden, my lamps, my stained glass, glasses in my bar, everything just started to move, not like normal,” Villa said. “Normally in this building, when you’re laying in bed, you can feel. It does this (making a shaking motion). You get used to it after a while. This was obvious (that something happened). And I said to her, ‘What the hell just happened? Did we just have, like, a mini-tremor or an earthquake?’”

Tedesco, who talked separately to the Telegram & Gazette, reiterated what happened while she was on the phone with Villa.

“I was sitting in my living room and I was talking to another tenant (Villa) and then, all of a sudden, I see tassels in the window moving. My lamp was moving a little bit…You could feel the floor moving like this (making a moving motion). I’m in the chair and it’s moving,” Tedesco said. “I just thought it was the way the building has been because it does move…but not like this. This was the worst I’ve ever seen.”

Both women said they were scared.

“This is kind of new,” Villa said. “We don’t live in California. We live in Massachusetts. We’re not used to feeling a tremor.”

“It was scary,” Tedesco, who lived in California for a time and experienced an earthquake on the West Coast. “It felt like a tiny little earthquake.”

After she got off the phone with Tedesco, Villa called downstairs to the apartment’s management. They told Villa that she is the second person to call about the tremor in the last few minutes.

Larry Bosompim is also a tenant at Mount Carmel.

“I was on the seventh floor,” Bosompim said. “I felt it on the seventh floor.”

Bosompin, who never lived through an earthquake before, had a similar story to tell as Tedesco and Villa had.

“The lamp was shaking. The flowers were moving,” Bosompin said. “I thought it was a shake, an earthquake, something like that.”

Craig S. Semon of the Telegram & Gazette staff contributed to this report. Return to telegram.com for more on this story.

2011 NE region is overdue for a sizable, bone- rattling quake

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Central Mass. residents report feeling earthquake Friday morning