New Yorkers fled shaking buildings in panic this afternoon as reverberations from the 5.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Virginia echoed up and down the East Coast, clogging streets and millions without cell phone service.
Manhattanite Margo Henderson, 20, was working on the 22nd floor of her office building on Wall Street when, she said, “The building started going up and down.”
She and coworkers took the elevator downstairs, where she joined throngs of shaken people on Wall Street.
“I’m freaked out, because my uncle died in Haiti,” Henderson said.
City Hall was briefly evacuated, according to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s office. There are no reported damages or injuries anywhere in the city, according to the fire department.
All airports in the city were shut down.
Her co-worker, Brooklynite Summer Harty, 31, said she noticed the earthquake when “My office door was shaking … everything was bouncing.”
Office worker Shannon Sanderson said she would take the rest of the day off after heading everyone in her 17th-floor office to safety outside.
“I actually yelled at everyone else to get out,” she said.
This afternoon, she said, she thought she might have a beer at the South Street Seaport.
More pictures of the crowd:
More on the earthquake:
Experts in February predicted the east coast was past due for a major quake
