“We had goosebumps”: in New York, tourists and residents between shock and indifference after the earthquake

“They are already preparing T-Shirts: ''I Survived the NYC 24 earthquake!''. Andréas, 26, has already become a joker again, an hour after seeing the ground shake. Like this young French expatriate across the Atlantic, the people present in New York this Friday April 5 experienced a rare earthquake of magnitude 4.7. The megacity shook for a few seconds in various places.

The slight tremor was felt at 10:23 a.m. (4:23 p.m. French time) in many neighborhoods in the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. A French expatriate for decades in the country's largest city, Romuald, 54, says he was in his building in Brooklyn, on the west end of Long Island, at the time of the earthquake, then in full concentration on the writing his book. Suddenly, he felt the building shaking for almost "15, 20 seconds." “It was long and violent,” breathes the researcher, still marked by the event. My first instinct was to tell my campaign to evacuate the building, and take the dog and our passports.”

On the other hand, outside, the damage is minimal in this emblematic district of the city. “Not much was affected, apart from a few electrical poles which fell but which were already in poor condition,” continues Romuald. Authorities confirmed that the earthquake, which occurred at a depth of 5 km according to the American Institute of Geophysics (USGS), did not cause any significant damage or immediate injuries. “We had goosebumps, because we know that we have no control over this kind of thing,” underlines the Brooklynite.

A short distance away, Brooke, vice-president of a public relations agency, was also at home, sitting at her desk, not far from her “in-laws who had just arrived from Brazil”. The American first thought that a large truck was passing, then that a nearby building was being demolished. “My husband was in the next room, with our 5-month-old baby in his arms,” she says. However, she was not apprehensive: “It was my first earthquake in New York since I moved here 6 years ago, but I have experienced earthquakes in Seattle, where I grew up , including the great earthquake of 2001.”

Also present in his tourist accommodation on the island of Manhattan, Paul was surprised in the middle of a phone call with his son. “I was on my couch to make this FaceTime phone call,” says this 55-year-old financial expert. It’s funny, because I was telling him that he needed to stop being afraid of driving during his driving hours. And then I had a moment of panic when I felt the walls shaking.” After a few moments of fear, and a real laugh between father and son, their discussion resumed as if nothing had happened.

Present in the subway under Manhattan, Andréas felt almost nothing at first. He then headed to a cafe in the heart of the “Big Apple” to work, before receiving an alert like everyone around him. “People in or around New York should stay in enclosed spaces and call 911 (an emergency number) in the event of injury,” reads the short message from the authorities. At that moment, the music stopped abruptly in the cafe. “It gave way to a ringing sound and it was too scary,” testifies the young Frenchman. He continues: “I was really scared because it was a very long time after the first tremors, when we were thinking of a maximum magnitude of 2 or 3. There was a bit of panic among some.”

At noon (6 p.m. in France), the authorities sent a second alert message, to remind people that the risks of aftershocks were very real. A message reiterated by the Governor of New York State, Kathy Hochul, who invites people in the city to “get down on the ground, protect your head and neck, under furniture, near a wall or from a doorstep.

A message received with detachment by certain French tourists. A woman, present in the streets of Brooklyn, claims to have felt nothing. Another French tourist tells us that he did not feel anything either in Philadelphia, further to the southwest, even though the earthquake took place 7 km northeast of Whitehouse station, in New Jersey. Far from the fear experienced by the Taiwanese on Wednesday, during a powerful 7.2 magnitude earthquake.