Is New Jersey suffering quake envy?

I have to confess. I’m more than a little disgusted. I can’t be the only one.

New Jersey comes with so many disappointments you’d think we’d be immune to them. We never get the credit we deserve for being an awesome state and we’ll always be in the cold shadow of New York and Philadelphia. We will never be allowed to be trusted with a gas nozzle like the rest of the nation. We will never be affordable. Etcetera etcetera.

ALSO: I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I miss NJ beach tags

There is one disappointment I can’t get used to. It’s when there’s a quake big enough to be felt yet I don’t feel it. And it happened again.

As Dan Alexander reported there was yet another aftershock to the April earthquake whose epicenter was in Hunterdon County. That one I felt in the spring.

We’ve had over 180 aftershocks since that big one was felt throughout much of the state and I live right in Hunterdon County mind you and yet I have never felt any of them.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude 2.2 earthquake centered east of Califon at 1:44 a.m. Wednesday morning. Now that’s not a big one and quakes less than 3.0 aren’t often felt by human beings but this one did get reports of people feeling it in Hunterdon and Somerset counties. The epicenter was said to be along Apple Lane near Old Turnpike Road and I’m not terribly far away from there in the grand scheme of things. Others felt it yet I did not, and I was even awake at that hour.

It reminds me of the one in August 2011 when a 5.9 quake hit in Virginia and was felt throughout New Jersey and much of the Northeast. It was at 1:51 p.m. and I was getting ready to go on the air here. Suddenly half the people in the building were excitedly running around asking others if “they felt it.” The rest of us were asking, “Felt what?”

It was a matter of what part of the building you were in. Ours felt nothing. Zero. Zip. Zilch. And frankly, I felt then as I do now. A little ripped off.

These aftershocks, the ones that have been felt anyway, are a shared, communal experience that I’m not experiencing. Am I alone in feeling a little disappointed when I miss out on the excitement? Or does everyone feel this way? Tss asking about FOMO.

Obviously I don’t want to experience a devastating earthquake. But a mild one would be nice. It’s kind of like seeing a bear from across a field as opposed to one bluff charging you. And come to think of it, I haven’t seen either one of those either.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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