Felt it, freaked out

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Note: Sorry for not introducing myself, I just want to post on this.

I live near the area of the earthquake, yes, and I was extremely frightened. My grandmother thought it was a helicopter or something, my grandfather (he likes to annoy people) thought it was his recliner vibrating, and I thought from the start that it was an earthquake. It lasted around....ten to twenty seconds, I think, and I was the most worried out of all of my family. My sister was texting her friends to see if they were OK, and I kept trying to call my mom (the power lines were down somehow where I was).

I have severe anxiety, so I pretty much couldn't take it...I hope I'm not the only one who wanted to vomit in fear...

Yeah, man, I've been through those meself. One felt like someone sliding a piece of really heavy machinery or furniture across the floor and I thought "wtf was that?" They happen so fast, there's no time to do anything and are finished almost as soon as they start. Last one we had my cat detected and his tail was standing on end. I had no idea what spooked him until I heard that an earthquake happened on "breaking" news. Pretty appropriate word for earthquakes, eh? Breaking? More like "quaking" news.

Am in the Philly/south Jersey area. One of our dogs was sitting in my lap as I sipped my coffee. He jumped off, soon we felt something like a thud, a brief pause, then the room swayed back and forth..lasting about 15 seconds. After it was over, my heart pounded. I don't think I was actually scared. Unnerved, you bet. What a strange sensation. Apparently I'm not alone. Never experienced a quake before. Probably won't soon forget it. No damage here and what I heard in other areas is mostly minor. This thing covered at least 14 states and Canada.

A 5.5 is about the size of earthquake that I consider getting out of bed for. I've slept through earthquakes bigger than 5.8!

The above descriptions match my experience of it- kind of a one-twp punch. First from below, then from above.

Was wasting time on the computer writing a post here on WP when I heard rumbling from below. First I thought it was a gang of intruders breaking into the basement in broad daylight.
Then the whole house rattled. Then most of the noise came from above- with roof shaking the most. So my thoughts raced to it being a gang of workman on the roof (maybe they got the wrong house).
Before the fifteen seconds were up I decided it had to be an earthquake.

Strolled up the street to compare notes with the neighbors. Nobody heard anything in the media yet but concured that it was earthquake.

Reactions ranged from someone who was outside in the backyard and didnt even feel it all to a workman who had been laying tile in someone's basement who was totally freaked out-"this is INSANE!"