© USGS
This map shows earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 3.5 that occurred between 1900 and 2009 along the east and west coasts of the U.S.
Reactions ranged from fright to amusement Tuesday as a 5.8-magnitude earthquake hit the East Coast, revealing post-9/11 fears as well as excitement surrounding a rare, and fortunately not deadly, event.
"Everyone calm down," Slate political correspondent John Dickerson wrote on Twitter. "If this is an
earthquake on the east coast we're supposed to react ironically."
Many people did, propagating a wave of earthquake jokes on Twitter. Others were more alarmed.
"Two women were screaming," said Paige Furbush, an intern for Utah Senator Orrin Hatch who was on her second day on the job Tuesday. "A few people thought it was a bomb, so the majority of people in the Capitol were definitely panicked."
That range of reactions isn't unexpected, said Josh Klapow, a clinical psychologist at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, who specializes in
disaster preparedness. People bring their own anxieties to an unexpected event, and interpretation matters, Klapow told LiveScience.
"The environment and the event set the stage, but it's people's minds, their cognitions, their thoughts that fill in the gaps," he said. "So if you're in D.C. in the Senate, if you feel a large jolt and earthquakes are not common, a common perception would be, 'Oh, it's something else. It's a bomb.'"
