You probably felt it. Or maybe you just heard that weird, low-frequency rumble that sounded like a heavy truck downshifting on a road that doesn't exist. Honestly, if you live near East Haddam or Moodus, you’re likely used to the "noises" by now, but for the rest of the state, an earthquake today in Connecticut is usually enough to send everyone straight to social media to ask, "Wait, was that just me?"
It wasn't just you.
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Seismologists at the USGS confirmed a small tremor—a magnitude 1.9—hit the Moodus area of East Haddam around 5:36 p.m. last Wednesday. Yeah, I know, 1.9 sounds like a nothing-burger if you're from California, but in the quiet bedrock of New England, these things carry. They feel like a sudden "thump" under the floorboards or a sharp crack in the distance.
Why Moodus is the earthquake capital of the Nutmeg State
Basically, Connecticut has a "Place of Noises." That’s literally what the Native American word Machimoodus means. The Wangunk tribe lived with these sounds for centuries before European settlers showed up and started blaming witches for the booms.
The science is actually cooler than the folklore.
Moodus sits on a specific type of brittle rock that transmits sound and vibration incredibly well. Unlike the West Coast, where tectonic plates are sliding past each other like giant tectonic tectonic sandpaper, Connecticut's quakes are intraplate. They happen inside the plate. Old stress from millions of years ago—back when the Atlantic Ocean was first opening up—is still stuck in the crust. Occasionally, it snaps.
It’s like an old house settling, but the house is the entire Northeast.
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The 4.8 wake-up call and why we're still talking about it
Kinda crazy to think about, but the strongest earthquake felt here recently wasn't even centered in the state. Remember April 5, 2024? A 4.8 magnitude quake over in New Jersey shook everything from Stamford to Hartford. People were actually scared that day. It was the strongest thing the region had felt since at least the early 1900s.
Since then, the sensitivity to any earthquake today in Connecticut has skyrocketed.
We’ve had a string of "microquakes" lately.
- January 2, 2026: A 2.1 magnitude hit.
- January 7, 2026: The 1.9 in Moodus.
- Mid-2025: Swarms near Killingworth and Essex.
Most of these are too small to cause damage, but they are loud. The "Moodus Noises" are often described as sounding like a gunshot or a heavy door slamming in another room. If you’re sitting in a quiet office in Newington or a kitchen in East Hampton, it’s unsettling.
Is the "Big One" coming to Connecticut?
The short answer? Probably not.
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But "probably" is a heavy word when you're talking to geologists. Experts like Terry Tullis have pointed out that while we don't have the massive fault lines of San Andreas, we do have "unrecognized faults." These are little cracks in the Earth's crust left over from when New England was an active plate boundary hundreds of millions of years ago.
They can't produce a magnitude 8.0. There just isn't enough connected fault length for that.
However, a magnitude 6.0 is statistically possible every few hundred years. The last big one for the region was the Cape Ann quake in 1755. If that happened today, with our old brick buildings and houses built on soft fill, it would be a mess.
What you actually need to do when the ground moves
Forget the doorway thing. Seriously, that's old advice from when adobe houses were common and the doorway was the only part of the wall left standing. In a modern Connecticut home, the doorway is no stronger than the rest of the wall.
If you feel an earthquake today in Connecticut, do this:
- Drop, Cover, and Hold On. Get under a sturdy table. If you're in bed, stay there and cover your head with a pillow.
- Stay inside. Most injuries happen when people try to run out of the building and get hit by falling glass or bricks from chimneys.
- Check your gas lines. If you smell "rotten eggs," get out and call the gas company immediately.
Connecticut isn't exactly a high-risk zone, but we aren't "zero-risk" either.
Check your chimney for cracks if you felt the latest rumble. Secure those heavy bookshelves to the wall, especially if you have kids or pets. It’s one of those things you never think about until the floor starts acting like a wave.
Stay weather-aware and earthquake-ready by keeping a basic emergency kit with a few days of water and a flashlight. You’ll likely never need it for a quake, but it’s great for the next Nor'easter anyway.