PAWNEE, Okla. — One of the largest earthquakes in Oklahoma rattled multiple states including Arkansas on Saturday, and likely will turn new attention to the practice of disposing oil and gas field wastewater deep underground.
The United States Geological Survey said a 5.6 magnitude earthquake happened at 7:02 a.m. Saturday in north-central Oklahoma, a key energy-producing region. That matches a November 2011 quake in the same region.
Pawnee County Emergency Management Director Mark Randell said no buildings collapsed in the town of 2,200 about nine miles southeast of the epicenter, and there were no injuries, either. "We've got buildings cracked," Randell said. "Most of it's brick and mortar, old buildings from the early 1900s."
Pawnee furniture store owner Lee Wills told The Associated Press that he first thought it was a thunderstorm.
"Then it just ... Everything went crazy after that. It just started shaking," said Wills, who lives about 2½ miles outside of town. "It rocked my house like a rubber band. Threw stuff off cabinets and out of cabinets, broke glasses."
The office of Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin tweeted that state highway crews were checking for bridge damage and the state Department of Emergency Management would assess damage and determine how to address it. Geologists say damage is not likely in earthquakes below magnitude 4.0.
An online Geological Survey map where residents report whether they felt the quake's rumbles showed dozens of responses in Northwest Arkansas for people who indicated weak or light shaking. There were also scattered reports from people who felt it elsewhere in the Natural State, including in Little Rock.
The Arkansas reports were most concentrated, though, in the state's northwest, where fans are gathering for the Razorback football team's season opener against Louisiana Tech.
Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Tracy Neal said on Twitter that he awakened Saturday to "shaking walls."
The Razorbacks' offensive line coach, Kurt Anderson, quipped about the rumbling on Twitter.
"Sorry folks we had an early morning [offensive line] walk thru," he joked in a Tweet that quickly drew hundreds of favorites. "May have felt like an earthquake."
People in Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri; Des Moines, Iowa; and Norman, Oklahoma, all also reported feeling the earthquake. Dallas TV station WFAA tweeted that the quake shook their studios, too.
An increase in magnitude 3.0 or greater earthquakes in Oklahoma has been linked to underground disposal of wastewater from oil and natural gas production. State regulators have asked producers to reduce wastewater disposal volumes in earthquake-prone regions of the state. Some parts of Oklahoma now match northern California for the nation's most shake-prone, and one Oklahoma region has a 1 in 8 chance of a damaging quake in 2016, with other parts closer to 1 in 20.
A cluster of quakes in northwestern Oklahoma this year included a magnitude 5.1 earthquake, and several 4.7 quakes were felt last fall before regulators stepped in to limit disposal activity.
Saturday's quake was centered about 9 miles northwest of Pawnee, Oklahoma. Earlier this week, the same spot, which is about 70 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, saw a magnitude 3.2 temblor.
Sean Weide in Omaha, Nebraska, told The Associated Press that he'd never been in an earthquake before and thought he was getting dizzy. Weide said he and one of his daughters "heard the building start creaking" and said it "was surreal."
Read Sunday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for more details.