4.2 magnitude earthquake hits near Port Orchard, felt from Issaquah to Olympia

A 4.2 magnitude earthquake hit Wauna, a town near Port Orchard, Tuesday afternoon.

Shaking was reported in Seattle, Bremerton, Tacoma, Olympia, and Issaquah, among other cities.

The earthquake struck around 2:05 p.m., roughly 10 miles north-northeast of Port Orchard, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

KIRO Newsradio spoke with Taylor Van Cise, Communications Manager for Air Quality at the Washington State Department of Ecology, who could feel the quake in Lacey.

“I felt it as though I thought somebody bumped into my chair, and then someone got mad in the coffee room behind me,” Van Cise said. “I popped my head out of my office door and saw about 10 other people doing the same thing. All these heads started popping up, looking around. ‘Did we all feel that?’ Sure enough, we did.”

“A lot of us here probably remember what happened in 2001 with the Nisqually earthquake,” Van Cise added. “It wasn’t that bad, but it certainly was noticeable and interrupted the workday.”

Did you feel it? Thousands reported earthquake shaking in minutes

Officials measured the earthquake at a depth of roughly 16.7 miles.

More than 6,000 people reported that they had felt the earthquake, with a majority of reports labeling the intensity as “weak” or “light.”

USGS determined the earthquake to have a 99% chance of being a “low likelihood of casualties and damage.”

The agency also estimated that roughly 5.2 million people lived in areas that experienced “weak” shaking.

Seattle felt a majority of the quake, with more than 3.4 million people estimated to have been exposed.

USGS estimated a 37% chance of an aftershock of magnitude 3 or higher within the next week, and an 8% chance of magnitude 4 or higher.

Shaking and a ‘deep growl’ rattle resident at home

Maxine Frost, the wife of KIRO Newsradio News Director Frank Lenzi, described her experience of the earthquake at her home.

“It was a combination of massive shaking along with this sound, like a deep growl; it was terrifying,” Frost said. “I’m thinking a helicopter was landing on the house, or maybe a huge truck pulling into our driveway, but the street was empty. Well, it’s got to be an earthquake; what else could it be? Yes, it was actually an earthquake. I was not losing my mind.”

Frost was asked if the earthquake had caused any damage around her house.

“Nothing really fell, but something, everything was rattling above me,” she said. “That’s why I thought something was landing on the roof. I could hear the ceiling fan rattling; the bed was shaking. I was sitting on the bed, and it felt like being on a ship. It went on for about seven seconds, and I was trying to think what I would do had the roof caved in or something.”

Sound Transit disruptions

In response to the earthquake, Sound Transit’s 1 Line trains are sharing one track at Angle Lake Station until further notice due to the seismic activity.

All trains will board on the platform for Federal Way Downtown.

Stay up to date on earthquakes around the region with the MyNorthwest Earthquake Tracker.

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