Rattled LIers react to 5.8 earthquake

Rattled Long Islanders responded to a 5.8 magnitude earthquake Tuesday with a mixture of bewilderment and wonder, evacuating buildings, straightening picture frames, and bracing for what turned out to be little damage.

Structures across the Island swayed for 20 seconds or more.

"The room just shook," said Kate Hillman, a clerk treasurer at New Hyde Park Village Hall, which was evacuated for 10 minutes.

Walter Priestley, a Farmingdale chiropractor, was in his office when the quake struck.

"At first I thought a train was going by and I looked out the window and didn't see any train," he said. "Then I felt like there was a wave going through the building and I saw all the pictures rattling. Then I told my staff, 'I think we should get out of the building because this is an earthquake' -- and we did."

Heavy volume choked cellphone networks shortly after the quake struck at 1:51 p.m., but there was no reported physical damage to communications systems. "When you have tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people picking up the cellphone to make a call at the same time, many will get through, but some won't," said Verizon Wireless spokesman Howard Waterman.

Suffolk police reported three times as many 911 calls between 1 and 2 p.m. Tuesday than during the same period Monday.

Among the physical damage: Suffolk County reported a tree down in East Moriches. Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton reported a drywall crack in a maintenance building.

Nassau officials found no concerns after inspecting numerous older buildings.

For most, the tremor was a reminder that the East Coast isn't immune to earthquakes.

Lisa Votino Tarrant, who lives on the Shinnecock Reservation in Southampton, said she was "sitting on the couch and it started swaying."

The last quake felt on Long Island, on Nov. 30, 2010, was a 3.9-magnitude temblor centered 100 miles offshore.

The Long Island Rail Road briefly evacuated its Jamaica Control Center, from which the central Jamaica station's signal and switching system is operated. A spokesman said inspectors were checking the system Tuesday.

At Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma, a spokeswoman said a number of checks on buildings had been made, but no damage was found.

The Long Island Power Authority reported no outages or structural damage.

David Dominski, 61, co-owner of Scoops Ice Cream Parlor in Cutchogue, said he knew something was amiss when he saw cones shaking on the shelves. He still didn't think much of it until "the women across the street ran out the building waving their arms."

Patti Stanton, assistant administrator of the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society, was in the base of the lighthouse tower when "the floor started shaking."

But four visitors atop the 168-foot tower at the time were less impressed. "They didn't feel anything," Stanton said.

On the 12th floor of the H. Lee Dennison Building in Hauppauge, Suffolk officials braced as the temblor shook the building. "You can be on an amusement park ride, but you're in a building swaying back and forth and it's something else," Suffolk Executive Steve Levy said.

With Bill Bleyer, Robert Brodsky, Sarah Crichton, Erin Geismer, Tania Lopez, Kery Murakami and Patrick Whittle