Magnitude 5.9 earthquake shakes Virginia, D.C. and New York

AP photo of falling debris in Vienna, Va. - suburban Washington DC 

Daaaaaaayyyyyyyuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!! An earthquake just hit our building in Lanham, Maryland. First indicators is that the magnitude of the earthquake was a 5.8. There were two "shakes". One shake was a tiny seemingly 2.5 that lasted about 7 or 8 seconds, and then stopped. The shaking stopped long enough for me to run in my colleagues' Ron Thompson's office to tell Ron that that was an earthquake. I should know living in California for 30 years going through its' major quakes. About a minute later, the "Big Quake" hit for about a solid minute.

The official reports now are that the magnitude was a 5.9 quake centered in Richmond, Va.. It felt a lot worse.

Wow! One of the 'many' reasons that I re-located to the Washington DC area was to get away from the California Earthquakes that at the time, in early to mid-1990's (I relocated to DC in 1996), was occurring a bit too frequent for me.

I see now, that you can't escape any sort of disaster on this volatile planet of ours.

Chief Administration Officer of Radio One Linda Vilardo, calms Radio One Headquarters in Lanham, Md

At 2:20pm eastern time, Linda Vilardo (photo above) made this announcement to Radio One in Lanham, Maryland:

"All:

We just experienced a 5.9 magnitude earthquake. Hope that you all are ok. Please let us know if you are not and want assistance.

In light of this event, please feel free to depart the office now (but please first alert your supervisor). We know that many of you have children and family that you need to check on.

Please be advised that there most likely will be some aftershocks. So please, please be careful and get safely to your destination."

Linda J. Vilardo

Chief Administrative Officer

Radio One, Inc.

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"You can run, but you can't hide" -- Heavyweight champion Joe Louis