Can a major earthquake hit New York City?

NEW YORK (PIX11) – Roosevelt Island residents were startled awake by what “sounded like an explosion,” then “felt the walls shaking” during the early morning last Tuesday. They were feeling the effects of a 1.7 magnitude earthquake that hit around 5:45 a.m., according to the United States Geological Survey.

The earthquake’s epicenter was located in Astoria, Queens, but it was felt the strongest by residents of Roosevelt Island in New York City’s East River, about 1.5 miles away. No injuries were reported due to the earthquake, and it also didn’t impact transit, traffic, utility services or the structural stability of any buildings, city officials said.

New York City has taken steps over the years to improve its resilience to earthquakes, such as requiring buildings be built to modern seismic standards to withstand the impact of earthquakes and minimize risks, according to NYC Emergency Management.

“New York City’s current building code is as stringent as any in the United States, with the likelihood of failure or collapse of a modern, code-compliant structure being the same as that in California,” NYC Emergency Management's Hazard Mitigation Plan explains.

However, most buildings in New York City were built before the more stringent seismic provisions were adopted in the city’s building code in 1995, according to the Hazard Mitigation Plan, which adds that “any potential damage here could be catastrophic due to the density and age of buildings and the inter-dependencies of complex layers of infrastructure.”

With a large earthquake having the potential to cause "catastrophic" damage in New York City, what are the chances of one actually happening? Thomas Pratt, a research geophysicist for the U.S. Geological Survey, said that large earthquakes are rare in the eastern U.S., but they have happened in the past.

Pratt said the most well-known example was an earthquake in 1866 that devastated Charleston, South Carolina. He also cited the 5.8 magnitude earthquake in 2011 in Virginia, the 5.1 magnitude earthquake in 2020 near Sparta, North Carolina, and the Cape Ann earthquake in 1755 that may have been as high as magnitude 5.9.

Pratt explained that it’s even possible for the eastern U.S. to experience earthquakes as large as magnitude 7.

“The eastern U.S. is an ‘extended margin’ that was stretched (extended) when the Atlantic Ocean opened a couple hundred million years ago, and in other parts of the world with similar settings there have been earthquakes as large as [magnitude 7],” Pratt said.

However, Pratt noted that he doesn’t expect the eastern U.S. to ever experience a magnitude 8 or 9 earthquake because those generally occur on subduction zones at plate boundaries.

The largest earthquake ever recorded in New York City’s history was 5.2 magnitude in 1884, according to NYC Emergency Management. It’s believed to have happened somewhere between Brooklyn and Sandy Hook, New Jersey. It caused damage to chimneys and brick buildings in New York City and New Jersey, authorities said.

If the 1884 earthquake were to happen today, the damage to people and property would be much worse due to the amount of building development that’s happened along the Hudson and in New York City since then, according to NYC Emergency Management.

Pratt said it’s certain that earthquakes larger than the one in 1884 have happened in the area in the past.

“As to whether there has ever been larger earthquakes in the area now occupied by NYC, the simple answer is yes, because we see faults that are plenty long enough to cause such a large earthquake and there have been some major tectonic events in the past such as mountain building and rifting,” Pratt said.

However, Pratt said it’s unknown exactly when the last time a larger earthquake happened in New York City’s area because they are so rare.

“We do not know, however, if there have been any in the past 20,000 years, 40,000 years, 100,000 years … It could be millions of years ago,” Pratt said. “Most likely, the area does experience earthquakes of [magnitude 6] or larger, but they occur so infrequently (tens or hundreds of thousands of years apart?) that we do not have evidence of past ones. Thus, let's wait about 100,000 years and see.”