When you get that earthquake feeling, what do you do? Call 911, of course.

Listen to the Montgomery County 911 calls

It isn’t like we live in California. Us East Coast folks aren’t so sure what that rumble means. Even if no one is hurt or property damaged, we need reassurance we aren’t alone. My former colleague from Channel 9 Scott Broom listened to some of the calls that came into the 911 Center in Montgomery County, Maryland just after 5:00 this morning. Here’s what he wrote:

Callers to 911 in the moments after the 3.6 magnitude earthquake that shook the capital region were bewildered by the shaking while equally surprised operators kept their cool.

“Yea, we felt it too,” a 9-11 dispatcher told one confused caller before asking to make sure no one was injured or needed medical help.

Another dispatcher told a caller asking if the shaking was an earthquake: “We’ve taken a lot of calls for it and we’re still trying to figure that out.”

No injuries or medical conditions were reported.

“So there was not an explosion or anything?” asked one caller who said he’d had experience with tremors. “I work for FEMA and I’ve been through an earthquake before, and I think that might have been an earthquake!”

Many of the calls to 911 started with a startled statement: “My house just shook!”