Earthquake in Charleston, South Carolina, (August 31, 1886)
by Charleston, South Carolina, experienced the most powerful earthquake ever to strike the east coast of the United States. Because of the epicenter’s closeness to the city, damage was extensive in and around Charleston and the quake was felt in places all the way from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
In the aftermath of the 1886 earthquake, railroad tracks buckled in a number of locations and telegraph wires were cut, leaving Charleston with no communication links to the rest of the world for a couple of days. Even then, there was no serious lack of food but the means for preparing the food that was available were inadequate since few houses escaped damage and many were totally destroyed. Much of Charleston was built on what was known as “made” land; that is, land formed by filling in existing creeks or extending shorelines with deposits of sand and rock. Older houses stood up better than newer ones because they had employed handmade bricks with a rough surface that were able to maintain a strong bond with mortar. One family that lived in an older house slept through the earthquake without knowing it had occurred. Well-built wooden homes with parts carefully pinned together withstood the shaking as well. These homes had an elastic quality enabling them to stretch under pressure and then return to their original shape.
There were two epicenters for this earthquake, one sixteen miles north of the city and the other thirteen miles to the west. The close proximity of these epicenters to Charleston accounted for so much widespread damage. Summerville, a town of about 2,000 people near the north epicenter, experienced sounds like major explosions on October 27 and 28. When the earthquake struck people in the town were tossed from side to side and frequently thrown to the ground. Houses appeared to be receiving heavy blows from below; chimneys fell down, sometimes carrying fireplaces with them as they collapsed into a heap of rubble. All indications pointed to strong vertical motion. Aftershocks gave a powerful boom sound. Ground fissures were everywhere and from some of them water was extruding, sometimes in the form of jets, at other times mixed with sand. The severity of the earthquake was felt over a much bigger area than the environs of Charleston, albeit in terms of lesser amounts of damage. For an area within eight hundred miles of the city severe shaking was experienced.
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