Mildred Coonrod of Greenbrier was shaken out of bed Wednesday morning, and by the afternoon, she was getting a little nervous.
One after another, sonic boom-like thundering earthquakes rattled the windows of her house on Snowden Road.
“They’ve been really active today,” she called the Log Cabin to report. “And they are getting bigger and louder.”
The one at 3:45 p.m. measured a 3.5 magnitude, much larger than the tremors earlier in the day.
She knows earthquakes. She grew up in that part of Missouri that is near the New Madrid fault.
She said when she was a kid, she’d be lying on the couch.
“The room would shake and I’d end up on the other side of the room. “But this is weird,” she said. Her poodle was barking in the background.
At an earthquake preparedness seminar in Conway on Tuesday, Geologist Scott Ausbrooks with the Arkansas U.S. Geological Survey predicted the quakes would get “bigger and louder.”
“The faults are near failure,” he said, adding there will be more earthquakes, and they will be bigger.
Faulkner County residents near Greenbrier and Guy reported that earthquakes were felt in the morning hours Wednesday.
According to the United States Geological Survey, 17 earthquakes ranging in magnitudes of 2.0 to 3.5 occurred in the area Tuesday and Wednesday.
An initial recording of a magnitude 2.9 occurred Wednesday, three miles north-northeast of Greenbrier at 11:07 a.m.
An initial register of a 2.8 quake was felt by residents at 9:52 a.m. Wednesday, originating four miles north-northeast of Greenbrier.
An earthquake registering at 2.7 was recorded at 8:39 a.m., originating three miles north-northeast of Greenbrier.
The largest quake recorded on Tuesday occurred at 4:35 p.m., and was registered as a magnitude 2.7.
That earthquake also originated three miles north-northeast of Greenbrier.
