East coast earthquake.

[TheBrew]

Jokes on you! I live on the 16th floor! The hurricane will pass right below me.

 

[Squiggy]

Meanwhile I will die in a hurricane fueled flurry of dorm rooms and crackpipes.

 

[Tora Ziyal]

Interesting psychological note - I work in a large place where people aren't always too terribly friendly with each other. After the quake, I noticed more smiling faces and got more "hi, how ya doin?" greetings in a couple hours than I have in the past couple of months. Interesting how traumatic or near-traumatic experiences can drastically change people's attitudes and perceptions. Probably a stark reminder of how insignificant and powerless we are in the face of nature - especially since, geologically speaking, this was nothing more than a small belch and a little dribble down Gaia's bib.

Like how friendly people were after 9/11/01.

Do they have to spend hours talking about this on the news?

It probably has to do with the fact that it happened near the capital of the United States.

More likely it has to do with it's being the East Coast's biggest earthquake in a century. I don't remember any significant quakes here in my lifetime.