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Quake rattles, Oakhill workers roll
By Ashley Luthern
YOUNGSTOWN
An earthquake that originated near Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, shook many Valley residents Wednesday and closed a Mahoning County building.
Staff at the Oakhill Renaissance Place felt the quake — 5.0 magnitude at its epicenter — around 1:30 p.m. and evacuated the building.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, earthquakes the size of Wednesday’s are uncommon east of the Rocky Mountains but have occurred sporadically in the area for the last three centuries.
Concerned labor representatives called Mahoning County Administrator George Tablack, and workers were sent home, but told to expect to return to work this morning.
“We always err on the side of caution, for the public and our employees,” Tablack said in a statement, adding that structural engineers have inspected the Oakhill building, county courthouse and old jail building, determining that there was no damage from the quake.
The work day ended three hours early, and it’s unclear if Oakhill employees will be compensated for that time.
“There’s no reason why [employees] should be penalized for leaving a building that they feel is unsound and going home,” said county Auditor Michael Sciortino. “We’ll have to see what’s reported on the time sheets, so we’ll go from there.”
Oakhill, the former Forum Health Southside Medical Center, houses various government offices, including the Mahoning County Department of Job and Family Services and the Youngstown City Health District.
Youngstown city officials also felt tremors at city hall.
“There were 18 of the city’s building, housing, fire, demolition and health inspectors in a meeting on the sixth floor and everyone was chit-chatting and then everyone got very quiet,” said Brenda Williams, chief building official.
“We were moving in our seats and realizing we were having an earthquake.”
Although tremors were felt as far south as Columbus, many of the phone calls reporting the quake came from northeast Ohio, said Mike Hansen, Ohio Seismic Network coordinator.
Vindy.com readers from Salem, Boardman, Toledo, Akron, Cleveland, Sharon, Pa., New Jersey and Canada wrote in about their experiences. Many were at work during the tremors.
“[I was] sitting in my desk chair and it slowly started to vibrate ... noticeably. I focused for a second and thought it was just my head playing games because I hadn’t eaten all morning, blinked a few times and looked away from my laptop and everything seemed to be OK,” said John Mansky of Salem in an e-mail.
Pat Burke had a similar report from West Middlesex, Pa.
“I was sitting in my office and felt the building shake like it does during high winds. I then felt my chair wobble and felt my chest to make sure I wasn’t having the big one,” Burke said in an e-mail.
Ian James was working at Accent Media on the seventh floor of 20 Federal Place.
“The building just started moving,” he said. “... I was thinking the Phar-Mor Building [former building’s name] is finally collapsing.”