charlottesville, virginia, which is where the main state school is located in virginia, and one official said that the earthquake was vividly felt there and lasted for ten seconds and people voluntarily fled the campus buildings, and that the main priority, tamron, is inspecting the university s vintage build ings that were designed by thomas jefferson, and the main part of the campus there what they call the grounds at uva, and they are looking at all of those. there are several what they call serpentine walls that date from jefferson s days and they are meandering walls that are s-curved and getting a lot of priority in addition to the rotunda and some of the main buildings on campus that are being inspected, but the university official there says that the operations of the university have not been fundamentally changed. of course, it is summertime now, and they are on a summer class schedule, but that nothing has been canceled, and they have no
standing about like, wow, did you feel that? and that is what you are hearing online. thank you, lester. and back to andrea mitchell. we are hearing that andrews air force base control tower has been evacuated which is affecting their flight plan. they apparently have their flight plan come out of that particular control tower and we heard a similar thing from tom costello of the air traffic control affected at jfk and at least two other airports in our area. well, andrews is a major air facility here and it is all of the governmental aircraft travel in and out of andrews. that is probably about 10 to 15 miles outside of washington, d.c. in prince georges county and that is a major factor and we have to check with the other airports in the area. you heard tom costello, of course, talking about the nuclear plant in virginia having been triggered with an automatic shutdown. that is a very good thing, indeed. the reason why there was so much trouble in japan, of course, is
have declared the building safe and everybody is streaming back in. all right. mick, thank you very much, and i want to remind our audience what you are looking at. you can see the capitol there and the iconic view from times square, and a lot of activity. we have information from the nuclear plants in the area. the one near the epicenter in virginia is on lake anna virginia, and that plant has two reactors and both tripped automatically and shutdown, and the plant has declared a quote unusual event which by the way is the lowest stage in their emergency scale. let me go now to tom costello, my colleague standing by, and i understand that you have new updates for me as well. well, the information that you have what i just put into the hot file, tamron, and that is right. i got off of the phone with the nuclear regulatory commission, and they saying that that plant there in virginia that is near the episen is ter acenter is on virginia, and both of to
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,
with you on the jobs fair down in mime mooi and preparing to talk other guests and wrap up the show, so we have had a lot of breaking news today out of libya, and we were focused so heavily on all of the developments there. it just didn t register for a while that this was an earthquake, something that i have lived here now 40 years and i have never experienced anything like that in washington. well, i have an e-mail from willie geist our colleague, and he said he felt it in new york, and the walls in his apartment shook for five to seven seconds, and no damage, and nothing since, but i believe that willie is near the west side of manhattan, and he is e-mailing me saying that he felt the tremors there. the usgs map showed that the earthquake centered near charlottesville, virginia, they believe and capitol police are evacuating the u.s. capitol and we got the head s up from the senator coons that this is happening, and after the