Fort Hamilton High School was shaken by a 4.8 magnitude earthquake that originated from New Jersey on Friday, April 5, 2024, while students and teachers were in their fourth period classes. The earthquake, which lasted about twenty seconds, was enough to lead people to coin – and print on t-shirts – the declaration, “I survived the New York City earthquake.”
The earthquake, with an epicenter in New Jersey, took New Yorkers by surprise, as the region does not regularly experience earthquakes. The tremors jolted students and teachers out of their instruction as they attempted to investigate the unusual occurrence.
“The earthquake on Friday, April 5th, at 10:23 am was certainly an unexpected experience for students and teachers in period 4,” said English teacher Ms. Maratos. “The third-floor bridge classrooms shook, causing the teachers to come to the hall to assess, and it was an unfamiliar sensation for many, but not all. The rumbling that preceded the quaking caused many of us to look around at each other, and then the shaking that came was frightening.”
At first, students and staff at Fort Hamilton High School thought it might have been anything but an earthquake, but when it went on for longer than usual was when they realized the gravity of the situation.
“Most of us thought it was a train, but after that second we were like ‘there’s no train near Fort,’ so we realized it was an earthquake,” said sophomore Chanel Chen. “Everybody was freaking out, honestly. Everything was all good, but we couldn’t chill out.”
Other students also took a moment to realize what was happening. “At first, I thought it was one of my friends shaking my desk, but I realized it was going on for too long, and then I realized it was an earthquake,” said junior Fatima Merah. “I was shocked because it was New York, we don’t usually get earthquakes, but overall, I was okay, and that’s all that mattered.”
“The principal’s message that followed quickly after was very helpful in assuaging fears about the safety of the building and about what was occurring,” added Ms. Maratos. “The NYC earthquake, minor though it was, allows us all an opportunity to realize the importance of situational awareness, and of being able to listen to announcements, and follow instructions.”
Dr. Larbi Rddad, an Earth science teacher at Fort Hamilton High School, explained to The Pilot what initiated the earthquake.
“The earthquake that happened last Friday was the result of an activation of a fault,” he said. A fault is a crack in the Earth’s crust where displacement occurs. Dr. Rddad explained that the process of the creation of these faults dates back to the separation of Pangea, the gigantic supercontinent from which today’s seven continents originated. “When you pull the rocks and you pull the land, you create faults, specifically called normal faults. When one block goes down and the other one goes up, they get displaced,” Dr. Rddad added.
“Although we are not at the plate boundary, when you have this kind of tension, because currently Africa is still moving away from America, there’s still this tension, and this tension can cause the rocks along the fault to slide,” Dr. Rddad said. “The problem is that those fold, they don’t slide because the surface between them is rough. So they want to slide, but they get stuck. When they get stuck, they bend. So the rocks keep bending and bending. The more they bend, the more they store energy. But at some point they break. When they break, they snap back and they release energy.
“We’re lucky we’re not at a plate boundary,” Dr. Rddad continued. “For example, California is at a plate boundary, but we are not at a plate boundary, which is good. That’s why we don’t have frequent earthquakes here.”
Coordinator of Student Activities, Diana De Paula, remembered the last time she experienced an earthquake. “When I was in college, I also lived through the 2011 earthquake and I was in downtown Manhattan right next to the Freedom Tower and all I saw was like the glass waving, so that was scary,” she said.
Despite the heightened anxiety of the building, incessant ring of amber alerts, and the brief aftershock occurring later in the evening, the earthquake yielded minimal damage to affected areas. It did, however, bring Fort Hamilton staff and students closer, because together they survived the 2024 New York City Earthquake, an experience worthy of its own t-shirt and a place in everyone’s memory.
