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© USGS
People in Keya Paha County felt a weak, "weird" earthquake Friday evening.

The earthquake, which had a 2.7 magnitude, caused no damage but did cause a rumble of conversation across the county, Barb Nilson, a dispatcher at the sheriff's office, said Saturday.

Nilson lives in Springview, the seat of the extreme north-central Nebraska county. She was standing near her front door in her bare feet Friday evening, saying goodbye to her son and granddaughter, when she heard a boom and felt something bang the bottom of her house.

It was 8:11 p.m.

"I said to them, 'What was that?'" Nilson said.

Then her phone started ringing. One woman wondered if it was an earthquake. Nilson called the National Weather Service to see if people there knew. A man who worked there said he'd call an earthquake center in Denver to find out.

"It wasn't too long until he called back and said, 'Yes, you did have an earthquake.'"

It was the kind of quake, Nilson said, that if you had your TV on too loud, you probably missed it.

One man told her he felt his dishes rattle. Another man told her he thought the furnace in the trailer beside his house had exploded.

The center of the earthquake - considered a "micro earthquake" - was two miles west-northwest of Springview.

"It was a weird feeling," Nilson said.