There have been so many earthquakes this past week all over the world and I don’t mean to sound like Chicken Little but … the floor is falling, the floor is falling!

I was watching the news Sunday night and I saw that there was an earthquake in Nebraska on the Nebraska – South Dakota border. It is not often that an earthquake is reported in the center of the United States.

I then recalled that when I was in junior high, my geography teacher, Mr. Thelin, told us that there was a fault located in Missouri.

That night, I went home and told my dad what my teacher had told me. He said that had heard a story about the Missouri earthquake as well. He said that it was in 1812 and the town of New Madrid, Missouri was completely destroyed. That was a powerful earthquake!

After hearing that there was an earthquake in Nebraska I began to wonder (again) about earthquakes. It is not something you think of when you are living in the center of the United States. Earthquakes are something that happens in other places, not here.

In my research about earthquakes, I didn’t have to look very long and very far to see where earthquakes have occurred.

According to earthquake.usgs.gov, there have been two earthquakes near Hays, Kan., and one near Dyersberg, Tenn., in the past week. These were small in size compared to the earthquakes that just hit Alaska and Italy, but nonetheless, they are happening.

Looking back at the past two weeks, there was an earthquake in central Alaska on Oct. 23 with a magnitude of 6.7. On the 31, a magnitude 5.9 (according to the U.S. government site, but according to MSNBC.com it was a 5.4) shook Italy and on Nov. 1 a 5.8 earthquake occurred in Italy also. On Nov. 1 an earthquake was also reported in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, that registered a 7.5 and last but not least, a magnitude 7.9 quake rocked Alaska on Sunday.

In San Giuliano di Puglia, Italy, they were burying their dead from this last quake. Officials are investigating why the school collapsed and killed 26 kids, one teacher and two elderly women who lived in a building nearby, but all of the other buildings stood up to the quake rather well. All of the first-graders, a class of only nine, had died.

This quake wiped out all of the 6-year-olds in this small town and the surrounding community. It is such a terrible tragedy but it is in a “quake-prone area” according to local officials.

In another tragedy-prone yet less populated area, officials are scrambling to fix the trans-Alaska pipeline after the 7.9 quake on Sunday. A 76-year-old woman broke her arm, but that was the extent of her and all of the reported injuries. The quake opened up a six foot crack in many highways in Alaska, making travel difficult.

According to Fox News, the effects were felt as far as Alabama and turned water brown in many other states. People in New Orleans saw water slosh about in pools, bayous and ponds and, closer to the quake, house boats were shaken from their moorings in Seattle.

According to the National Earthquake Center in Colorado, the shock waves traveled though the Earth’s crust and caused a disturbance in water. There were also reports of water sloshing about in Minnesota and Oklahoma.

This is not the first time that effects from a powerful quake have been felt thousands of miles away. According to the National Earthquake Center, bells rang in Boston when the 1812 earthquake occurred in Missouri.

Luckily for those who live in Iowa, there have been no actual earthquakes reported to the National Earthquake Center since they have been documented.

According to history, we can feel the effects of quakes that occur in Missouri, South Dakota, Nebraska and Illinois.

So maybe I was overreacting a bit when I sounded like Chicken Little. The floor isn’t falling, but it sure is shaking!

Hang on and enjoy the ride.

Sarah Bolton

is a senior in English from Glidden.