Breckenridge Texan

By Carla McKeown/Breckenridge Texan

For at least the second time this week, an earthquake shook West Texas this morning with tremors that were felt in Stephens County.

This map shows all of the earthquakes that have occurred in the Snyder-Hermleigh area in the past day. They range in intensity from 1.5 to 5.1 on the Moment Magnitude scale. (Map from the USGS website)

According to the U.S. Geological Survey’s latest report, an earthquake measuring 5.1 in magnitude happened at 9:28 a.m. today, Friday, July 26, east of Snyder and north/northeast of Hermleigh on the border of Scurry County and Fisher County. It falls under the intensity level of VI (6) with “strong shaking” and “light damage” possibilities.

The USGS uses the Moment Magnitude scale, which is basically an updated version of the Richter scale, a term many people are more familiar with. The magnitudes of the earthquakes are reported with an “M” for Moment Magnitude; for example, this earthquake is reported as M 5.1.

At 9:40 a.m., a smaller earthquake with a magnitude of 3.3 occurred just to the east in Fisher County. In the ensuing hour, at least five additional earthquakes measuring M 1.8 to M 2.7 took place in the same general vicinity.

In Lubbock, KCBD television station reported that “Scurry County Judge Dan Hicks has declared a disaster and is requesting assistance from the state after one of the strongest earthquakes in Texas history caused damage across the area Friday morning.”

According to the USGS’s citizen science webpage — “Did You Feel It?” — the earthquake was felt as far north as Plainview and Childress, to the south in San Angelo, to the west in Andrews and Odessa and to the east in Breckenridge and Eastland. Residents can go to the Did You Feel It? website and fill out a brief form to report your experience; at the time of this article, more than 2,000 people had responded to the survey. If you’d like to report your experience with this morning’s earthquake, look for the list of earthquakes labeled “DYFI, Past 24 Hours.” Since there were several in the Hermleigh area this morning, make sure you choose the one that took place at 9:28 today; it is listed in Coordinated Universal Time as “2024-07-26 14:28:29 UTC” and has a small Roman numeral “VI” in a yellow box as part of the listing.

In Breckenridge, several people reported on Facebook that they felt this morning’s tremors. Here at the Breckenridge Texas office east of town, we felt a brief shaking.

In San Angelo, Deena Richardson said, “I heard it first. Shook my foundation. Things were falling…it sounded as if dust debris was falling off of the house.”

On Monday night, July 22, the same area near Snyder and Hermleigh experienced a M 4.9 earthquake that was also felt by residents in Breckenridge. Although the USGS map shows that Stephens County is about as far east as the tremors have been felt, other reports and news stories are indicating both Monday’s and today’s earthquakes were felt as far as Fort Worth and Dallas.

Cutline, top image: This map from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Did You Feel It? web page shows the area of reported tremors. (Map from the USGS website)