We finally have some good news to report!
Yesterday afternoon, about 12 hours before a pair of man-made earthquake once again struck our state, the USGS released a report stating there's only a small 5% - 12% chance that a major earthquake will strike Oklahoma at some point over the next 50-years.
Via NewsOK.com:
North-central and northwestern Oklahoma are among the highest risk areas in the country for damage from earthquakes, according to an updated earthquake hazard report released by the U.S. Geological Survey on Monday.
The report marks the first time the USGS hazard map has included risk from both natural and human-induced earthquakes.
“By including human-induced events, our assessment of earthquake hazards has significantly increased in parts of the U.S.,” Mark Petersen, chief of the USGS National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project, said in a statement. “This research also shows that much more of the nation faces a significant chance of having damaging earthquakes over the next year, whether natural or human-induced.”
The one-year outlook is a supplement to the 50-year forecast the survey updated in 2014. The report found the most significant risk from induced earthquakes in Oklahoma, followed by Kansas, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico and Arkansas.
I don't know about you, but I'm going to sleep better tonight after reading this. Well, that is if another earthquake doesn't wake me up in the middle of the night. Isn't that annoying? It's always difficult to fall back to sleep when you're wondering if your ceiling fan is about to crash on your head.