MADISON, Ohio — An area of Northeast Ohio known for its wineries has also been generating buzz recently for its earthquakes.
Sunday night, the Grand River Valley around Madison Township shook with a 3.6 magnitude earthquake. The tremor was preceded by at least one smaller foreshock Thursday afternoon and an aftershock early Monday morning.
Watch our report from Sunday:
“It sounded like rumbling. It literally sounded like something ran into our house,” said Laura Shimko, who lives in Madison Village.
Tony Debevc also felt it from his home several miles away.
“We felt a little vibration. I was sitting in my living room… and then a sudden big boom,” he said.
Debevc also owns Debonne Vineyards on Doty Road. On Monday morning, his team was cleaning up a mess caused by the earthquake. It shook several of the winery’s beer taps open, spilling 30 gallons onto the floor of the beer tasting room.
“The cleaning lady that comes in after the weekend came in, and she said, ‘Oh my goodness.’ There was beer everywhere. So we had some sticky floors. But other than that, we were pretty lucky,” Debevc said.
He pointed out several new cracks in Debonne’s fireplace that appeared after the most recent earthquake. On the opposite side of the same fireplace, a larger stretch of the brick cracked from another memorable quake in 1985.
“It’s an old crack that we saw right away when we had that earthquake,” he said.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the Sunday night earthquake was felt as far away as Eastern Cuyahoga County and parts of Western Pennsylvania.
In 2022, News 5 reported a series of several small tremors in Lake County in both January and February.
“Earthquakes typically don’t happen in one-off events. They generally happen in sequences,” said William Yeck, a USGS Research Geophysicist. “It’s really the geology at play that’s causing these earthquakes to happen.”
He explained earthquakes have been relatively rare and mild in Northeast Ohio. But Madison sits near a faultline, making the area more susceptible to the events.
“Unfortunately, we can’t predict if there are going to be more aftershocks and how large they’ll be. That’s just one of the difficulties with earthquake science,” Yeck said.
Neighbors like Debevc tell News 5 that experiencing the occasional earthquake has become part of living in Eastern Lake and Western Ashtabula Counties. Debevc said it hasn’t necessitated any adjustments at the vineyards, and he’s focused on producing wine.
“It’s something we’d have to look at if it starts happening more often. Right now, I have a lot more other things to worry about than that,” he said.
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
