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“It Felt Surreal” Reactions to West Michigan Quake

Posted at 2:26 PM, May 02, 2015
and last updated 2015-05-02 16:32:55-04

GALESBURG, Mich. – Residents across West Michigan lit up phone lines to police agencies and the FOX 17 Newsroom after an earthquake shook the area just after 12 p.m.  Kalamazoo County Sheriff Richard Fuller traveled to Galesburg with FOX 17 news crews to survey the damage there.  Visible cracks in the walls of the Checkered Past Cycle Shop showed the strength of the quake near the epicenter.

The earthquake rattle homes and businesses across the state.  Reports flooded into newsrooms and 911 centers from Ann Arbor west to the Lake Michigan shoreline. Residents also felt the shock in Metro Grand Rapids.

Sterling Dehn was helping a customer at MerLex Computer Repair in Shelbyville.  Dehn sent FOX 17 security camera video from inside the store caught their reaction when the jolt hit.

He says they are used to semi-trucks rumbling down M-179 through Shelbyville, but he never expected to experience an earthquake in West Michigan.

“There were people outside our store looking down the road to see if there was any equipment coming, but there was nothing”  Dehn said.  “We kind of laughed about it being an earthquake, but never expected to hear that is what actually happened.”

Checkered Past Cycles in Galesburg, Michigan

Checkered Past Cycles in Galesburg, Michigan

Watch this footage pulled from a security camera at Merlex Computer Repairs in Shelbyville, Michigan:

This footage is from Paw Paw Seventh-Day Adventist Church, where the earthquake hit just as their pastor was talking about the recent earthquake in Nepal: