UPDATE: Earthquake in Virginia Shakes Up Connecticut. Did You Feel It?

An earthquake that hit Virginia just north of Richmond at 1:51 p.m. today sent shockwaves from the Carolinas to Massachusetts and surprised Connecticut residents, many of whom had never experienced an earthquake before.

The National Weather Service is reporting that the earthquake measured 5.9 on the Richter scale and originated about 34 miles northwest of Richmond, Va., near the towns of Louisa and Mineral (see photos and video from the in the gallery with this story). The earthquake caused evacuations of both the Capitol Building and Pentagon in Washington D.C.

Buildings from North Carolina to Boston have been evacuated, according to early reports from the Huffington Post.

In Connecticut, several towns have reported police activity, including Southington, after dispatchers received several calls, according to the Southington Police Department. No injuries or extensive damage has been reported in the region.

“The movement people in Connecticut felt was associated with the earthquake which originated in Virginia. Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection staff is at the Emergency Operations Center as a precaution, but at this point, there have been no reports of injury or damage,” Gov. Dannel Malloy said in a statement.

Peter Boynton, Deputy Commissioner with the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, said Connecticut residents felt a 2.7 earthquake on the intensity scale as measured by the U.S. Geographical Survey.

The scale, which is designed to measure earthquakes as felt by the average resident, is not the same as the Richter scale, which measures the impact of an earthquake based on geological factors.

Doug Glowacki, emergency management program specialist for Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, said the scale is designed instead to measure “how a person would feel it sitting in a chair or standing on the sidewalk.”

“It translates to the average resident feeling a weak shaking with little or no damage expected,” Glowacki said. “On the scale, a one is an earthquake that we do not feel, 2 -3 would be a weak earthquake with no damage, and a 4 would be a light earthquake with no damage or minimal damage.”

The state opened the Emergency Operations Center as a precaution and several buildings across the state were evacuated, Boynton said, but there was no significant damage or serious injuries reported by Connecticut towns.

The center closed at 4:30 p.m. according to David Bednarz, Deputy Press Secretary for Gov. Dannel Malloy.

“The state Department of Transportation is sending inspectors to check bridges as a precaution, and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is checking dams, also as a precautionary matter,” he said. “We also have report from radiological unit that the Millstone Power Station (in Waterford) is reporting no damage and has not changed its operating status.”

Since the earthquake occurred, he said, Connecticut Light & Power reported 391 electric outages and United Illuminating reported just one.

At Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, activity has picked up as eight flights were redirected from the Newark, N.J., and New York City area as a result of the earthquake.

USA Today has a running update on the quake, which was felt throughout the East Coast. According to the paper, JFK airport was shut down temporarily and the Pentagon evacuated.

There were a few evacuations in Connecticut, both Malloy and Boynton said, with the New Haven Open tennis tournament at Yale evacuated as a precaution and a state building at Sigourney Street in Hartford each closed for precautionary measures following the incident. Both have since reopened.

The earthquake was the first tremor felt in any part of Connecticut since a small tremor in 1992 following a small-scale earthquake in northern New York State that was felt just across the Connecticut border, Glowacki said.

The last earthquake to directly hit Connecticut was in 1791 and measured a 6 on the Richter scale.

Farmington Police Lt. Bill Tyler said his department received some two dozen 911 calls shortly after the quake struck inquiring if what they just felt was, indeed, an earthquake.

Tyler said he was in his patrol car stopped in a parking lot just off of Route 10 in Farmington when the quake happened. All of the sudden, Tyler said, his vehicle started to move.

"It felt like someone was behind the car pushing it back and forth, as if they were playing a game with you," he said.

Although the earthquake did not cause any significant problems, it did catch people off guard.

“Did you feel that? What was that?” said Shelley Gombotz, owner of Caffe Del Mondo, when the earthquake occurred.

Jennifer Barlow said she felt the earthquake in Collinsville.

"I could feel my desk shaking and then I noticed it wasn't just my desk," she said. "At first I thought it was a big truck driving by, but it lasted too long to be a truck."

West Hartford resident Audra Celio was sitting on the couch with her son, and she thought her house was going to fall apart. "The rocking chair was moving," Celio said. She yelled to her daughter upstairs, who said, "Mom, my bed is shaking and my dollhouse is moving."

An hour later, Celio said she will never forget the feeling. "It was a calm, rolling motion — a very weird, very strange feeling."

Debbie Godiksen, a staff member at the Farmington Library, said residents from Farmington, as well as other area towns, have been coming in since the quake struck earlier this afternoon sharing their experiences.

"One woman said she was vacuuming when all of the sudden the television started to move," Godiksen said.

"We've had plenty of people coming in asking: 'Did you feel it? Did you feel it?" she said. "So, plenty of people around town did feel it."

Michael Barry, a custodian at Granby Memorial High School, said that he saw the school banners swaying back and forth and the doors shaking.

"My first reaction was, 'Those doors are supposed to be locked. Why are they moving?'" he said, before adding that he heard on his two-way radio from the secretary at the middle school that the book shelves were shaking "all over the place."

Barry had an explanation for why no damage had been reported as of 3:30 p.m.

"I went to church last week, which doesn't happen very often," he said. "It cost me $2 in the offering plate; turns out to be the best money I ever spent."

A Facebook group for Connecticut residents who felt the earthquake is already gathering comments and photos: http://www.facebook.com/groups/128951580534168/