Earthquake intensity by ZIP code
Posted at 11:13 p.m., Oct. 21, 2011
We explained the scale used for the data, but otherwise the interface was pretty simple.
We explained the scale used for the data, but otherwise the interface was pretty simple.
This is how strongly the earthquake was felt where I live.
Earthquakes aren't the most common thing in Virginia, but a magnitude 5.8 earthquake is definitely the sort of thing that attracts attention. (Of course, it got outdone by a hurricane later that week, but that's a different story altogether.)
One of the questions floating around the graphics office shortly after the earthquake hit was how strongly people in other areas felt it, especially considering all of the attention the event had received on Twitter (even proving a point from an xkcd strip).
Since the U.S. Geological Survey just happens to collect data on the reported intensity of earthquakes, I managed to put together a new frontend for that information really quickly — on the order of about half an hour or so. (It helped that jQuery selectors work on XML documents. Try it some time!)