Earthquake off coast of Cuba felt as far away as Tallahassee
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
Tallahassee has contended with hurricanes, tornadoes and freak winter storms — and now it can add earthquakes to the list.
On Monday, June 8, a magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck in the Gulf of Mexico just off the western coast of Cuba. The rumbling could be felt from South Florida, where numerous reports came in, to as far north as Tallahassee.
People who experienced the quake, which struck at 2 p.m., reported five or six seconds of shaking.
"An earthquake in Tallahassee is insane," one man observed on Facebook.
Wright Dobbs, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, was among weather professionals in Florida who felt the magnitude 6.1 earthquake.
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“It was extremely subtle though and I easily confused it at first with an unstable chair until others mentioned they felt something around then,” Dobbs said in a post on X. “Crazy! First time feeling an earthquake.”
Dobbs’ comments came in reply to an X post from the NWS office in Miami.
“We’ve received several recent reports of shaking across Southwestern Florida within the past 30 minutes,” the Miami office said.
A global seismic observatory station (code FSUO) located 143 feet below ground near the southeast entrance of the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science (EOAS) building on the Tallahassee campus − which monitors earthquakes around the globe − was triggered by Monday's quake.
While the borehole seismometer was able to confirm the 6.1 magnitude earthquake, the shaking was felt too lightly in Tallahassee for it to pick up any measurements of how strong the ground movement was in the local area.
At the same time, the instrument is powerful enough to pick up movements as low as a magnitude 5 from earthquakes all over the world as well as much smaller ones at closer ranges, according to the university. A chart of the FSU seismometer also shows data collected from a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that took place in Mindanao, Philippines on June 7, along with two other ones that occurred in Chile and the Leeward Islands in May.
“It is relatively rare that there is an earthquake in that region, especially of this magnitude,” FSU geochemistry professor Vincent Salters said in a June 8 statement sent to the Tallahassee Democrat, noting that the earthquake's location is "peculiar" as quake activity generally happens to the south of Cuba.
"It is extremely rare that an earthquake can be felt in Tallahassee. The U.S. Geological Survey Shake Map does not indicate that shaking is felt in Tallahassee, thus the shaking was extremely light.”
In the moments after the quake, capital city residents took to social media to share their experiences.
One woman wrote in a Facebook post that she could feel the quake from the Clerk of Court office in Tallahassee. Another said she experienced it on the third floor of the Capital City Bank building at Interstate 10 and Thomasville Road. Another person on a third floor said the blinds were clattering against the window.
The United States Geological Survey charted reports of tremors around Florida from the June 8, 2026 earthquake near Cuba. (USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect)
“People all over Florida are feeling it,” she wrote. “I thought I was losing my mind and or that our building was gonna fall down.”
A spokesman for the Florida Department of Management Services, which acts as the state's real estate manager, said there were no reports of damage to any state or local government offices in Tallahassee or any evacuations.
However, some reported people leaving offices in confusion.
"I was sitting in my car at the DBPR office building on Blairstone Road waiting on my husband to get off work," a woman wrote on Facebook. "People were coming out of the building and standing in the parking lot because they had evacuated the building. I felt my car shake and I thought it was strange because my car was turned off. So this must’ve been what I felt."
A city spokesperson also said there were no reports of damage or power outages in the aftermath.
There were also not immediate reports of widespread damage or injuries in Cuba. Hours earlier, tsunami warnings and alerts were issued in the Pacific after an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 struck off Mindanao in the southern Philippines. Photos of the aftermath showed crews searching rubble and collapsed buildings.
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Did you feel the earthquake in Tallahassee?
Email us at news@tallahassee.com and tell us what you experienced, where you were and your name so we can include you in our coverage.
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: *'Insane': Earthquake off coast of Cuba felt as far away as Tallahassee.*
Reporting by Jeff Burlew and Tarah Jean, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect