Last Saturday morning about 10:45 a.m. Victoria Howell, editor of the Bitterroot Star, was working at her office desk in downtown Stevensville when her office chair began to rock as if under its own volition.
“At first I didn’t know what to think,” said Howell, “but it lasted long enough that I realized it couldn’t be a large truck going by and rattling the whole building. I realized it must be an earthquake.” She posted a comment on the Star’s facebook page and it wasn’t long before others posted that they had felt it, too. People felt the quake in Hamilton, Corvallis, Victor and Stevensville and up in the Three Mile area. Stevensville Mayor Gene Mim Mack, owner of the Stevensville Hotel, said that he was standing in the kitchen when it happened and saw the water sloshing in the kitchen sink.
The epicenter of the 4.9 magnitude earthquake was about four miles from Challis, Idaho and about five miles underground.
According to an article in the Idaho Statesman, the morning earthquake rattled and felled items and triggered road-blocking rockslides but did not cause any injuries or major damage.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the earthquake was followed by a magnitude 4.0 quake 12:34 a.m. Sunday. These quakes are part of a swarm of earthquakes that started about two weeks ago involving nearly two dozen quakes in the Challis area, including a 3.7-magnitude quake on Dec. 22 and a 3.4 magnitude quake on Dec. 23.