day, and i haven t eaten and maybe it was just me, but it was not me and something and so i feel better. and we saw emergency vehicles down here with a lot of federal and state buildings and high-ri high-rises, so it served as a warning and fire drill for a lot of the emergency service workers to get out to see what is going on as you and others have been reporting there are now emergency crews looking at the bridges and the subway and the tunnels and just to make sure, and give everything a good once over, but the bottom line is that here, a lot of things are normal and a lot of people back to the building and a lot of of people here in the park trying to get an early afternoon off as well. tamron. thank you, ron. over to pete williams and i understand that you have an update, pete, especially on the university not far from the epicenter in virginia of this quake? well, that is right. the quake was centered according to the u.s. geological survey at the town of mineral, virginia,
because amtrak wants a look at it before they drive any trains over them or under them. right, pete. that is to your point, it is at this point not about the damages, because it seems that as you point out report after report no serious damage and no injuries, but the inconveniences, and the nypd has told our affiliate there that because of the heavy volume of calls the nypd is asking people to call 911 for serious emergencies only, and cnbc is reporting that verizon wireless says they had network congestion for some people in the east for 20 minutes after the tremor, but they say no damage to the network that was built for reliability in situations like this, but however for 20 minutes people could not make phone calls because of the congestion. and the usgs is confirming to mike tomaso is that the
magnitude at the center of the quake is 5.8. we cannot refer it to as a magnitude when talking about the tr tremors in new york, because it is measured by intensity and, pete, between two and three and again perspective-wise, you are in manhattan and not expecting it, a 2.0 or 3.0 feels like something else. i have a statement from mayor michael bloomberg, like people up and down the east coast the people in the five burroughs have felt the tremor, and we have activated the department of buildings and thankfully no reports of significant damages or injuries at this time. as always, urge the new yorkers to call 911 only in the case of actual e energy smergency and t of the statement from the mayor
spent many years in los angeles, it was nothing to her, and no doubt that it was an earthquake to her, but for those of us who lived in washington for decades, this is not something we are used to feeling here, and it started out very gently, and we could feel our building rumbling. it was as though you were in an area where a freight train was passing by is the only feel i can come to it, and then it became clear that it was an earthquake and i have to admit to you that i did briefly dive under the desk having seen all of the public service announcements about what to do. you did the right thing. i did briefly dive under my desk, and then when it was pretty clear it was over, we started to working the phones, but so far, no reports of damage here in the d.c. area. well, you know what, pete, i m looking at twitter right now and to your point people are processing this in a number of ways and it has now been upgraded to 6.0. and jonathan capehart one of the analysts did the same t
so, a lot of this is new to us on the east coast, but i m sure a lot of the viewers on the west coast are saying, welcome to the party. right. but that is a considerable, and that is a considerably going to affect obviously the afternoon commute and potentially tomorrow morning for amtrak and the northeast corridor, and secondly, a homeland security official tells me that a quick pulse around washington, d.c. finds no reports of any damage or any injuries from the earthquake here in the washington area, tamron. all right. thank you, pete. now, over to bill kcahill with the port authority in new york. and bill, start off with the information of where things stand right now. the federal aviation administration evacuated its control tower at john f. kennedy international and newark international airport after the tremblers hit. they are going to do an inspection to make sure that the