Aug 23rd 2011, 19:53:38
I'm in downtown Bethesda (like 5 miles outside of DC), 5th story of an office building. When the earthquake hit, I looked out the window because it felt like a really strong gust of wind, but I hadn't expected any thunderstorms today. When I looked outside and saw no wind, and that it was still sunny, I realized it was an earthquake.
It was longer than a gust of wind shakes a building, and a bit harder, but still pretty similar to it. I've never been in a tall building during a hurricane, but I bet that 60+ mph winds would have shook the building about as much as this earthquake.
I thought it was really silly of them to evacuate the office building I was in, until I realized that it would be foolish to assume that the initial earthquake was the main one, and that a more powerful quake could be coming. Thats the only good reason to have evacuated, because it really wasn't that bad. But I also realized that the people evacuating the building probably weren't thinking about the possibility that the initial quake wasn't necessarily the main one. Their reason is that its DC, so they have to overreact to everything. Its just the culture we have here.