By Aaron Weiss

As much as we depend on the internet for raw data, the web has nothing on the immediacy of our audience when an earthquake hits. Some of you must have our newsroom number on speed dial.

Several minutes before tonight's quake showed up on the USGS site, we got dozens of calls from viewers telling us they felt it. We always appreciate that, since I can't recall anyone in the newsroom ever feeling an earthquake. Joe Arndt, our Managing Editor, texted us to tell us he felt it in the Buckman neighborhood.

Most of the early calls came in from the Lake Oswego area. I took one from as far away as Newberg. About 5 minutes later, the USGS had the quake with a preliminary magnitude of 2.9, and we got on the air with it. The calls kept coming in from all over.

By 11:00 pm, more than 130 people had already commented online, telling us where they felt (or didn't feel) the quake.

The first oddity we noticed: even though tonight's quake was just 2 miles from the center of Canby, we didn't get calls from anyone who felt it there.

There's something about earthquakes that makes us want to share the experience. Maybe it's just the knowledge that you're not imagining things -- the earth really did shake. Maybe it's the curiosity of knowing how and where an earthquake travels. Maybe it's the knowledge that we're due for a Big One, and what feels like a little rumble to you could spell disaster a few hundred miles away.

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