Can Florida get hit by an earthquake? What to know about the risks of natural disaster

An earthquake shook Southern California in early February. This week, a devastating quake toppled buildings and killed thousands in Turkey and Syria.

Can the earth move in Florida?

Florida is known for its own natural disasters: hurricanes, tornadoes, riptides, flooding, flesh-eating bacteria, alligator and shark attacks.

Earthquakes aren’t usually on the list of things to worry about.

But they can — and have — happened in the Sunshine State.

In 2019, for instance, Florida recorded at least nine small earthquakes, mostly in the 2.0 magnitude range.

In 2020, a 4.4 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Escambia County.

The Geological Survey even was a taken by surprise at the time, posting on Twitter: “Speaking of earthquakes in enigmatic places, now there’s something you don’t see every day: an earthquake in (or very close to) Florida!”

Geoscientists say Florida doesn’t have active fault zones so the shaking can be a bit of a mystery. Fracking, a process to recover oil and gas from rock, could lead to natural earthquakes because wastewater injected into the ground could induce the movement.

Feeling it in Miami

That doesn’t mean Florida can’t feel major earthquakes that rumble through the nearby Caribbean.

In January 2020, a powerful earthquake 7.7-magnitude that shook buildings in Cuba and Jamaica was felt all the way to downtown Miami. The force traveled several hundred miles to South Florida, causing downtown Miami skyscrapers to sway and workers to head to the street. In the Keys, boats rocked and lights flickered.

“I’m sitting in my office and started to feel a very slight sway,” downtown Miami lawyer Eli Stiers said at the time. “I didn’t know whether I had some bad sushi for lunch or what. But then I looked at my office door and saw it teetering on its hinges. I asked people in the office if they felt it. When people stopped for a second and registered what was going on, they said yes, the building is moving.”