So… I am OK, the house is OK as of now, M and Lily are ok. Some neighbors were not as lucky!

One example: my neighbors, the Pendleton’s, whose home circa 1819 had further damage to the residence after two strong aftershocks.

The Louisa County schools suffered severe enough damage, causing them to be closed for at least the next two weeks.

This AM DC’s National Cathedral admitted damage was much worse than they had realized. And now the Washington Monument is in bad shape as well.

The below story comes from the Charlottesville Daily Progress, by Ted Strong:

MINERAL — Tuesday’s earthquake collapsed two houses and forced at least 20 people from their homes, Louisa County officials said. No fatalities or serious injuries had been reported as of 6 p.m., but officials feared the number without homes would grow as more residents returned home from work and assessed damage.

Gary and Cindy Vayo were worried their home might have to be condemned after Tuesday’s earthquake, but there was no question where they’d be spending Tuesday night.

“Right here,” Gary Vayo said with an air of certainty. “This is home.”

They were working Tuesday afternoon to clean up the debris strewn around the house, about 10 miles south of Mineral and closer still to the epicenter of the earthquake.

“I can’t believe this,” said Cindy Vayo as she surveyed the destruction, pointing out a wrecked kitchen, heirloom dishes thrown from a cabinet to shatter on the floor and a sea of other wreckage.

It was an awful thing to come home and find, she said.

“And then… you call to your insurance agent, and you find out you don’t have any [coverage],” Vayo said.

The quake emanated from a spot south of and between Mineral and Louisa, and both towns suffered damage to items such as plate glass windows, shelves, chimneys and drop ceilings. The county’s middle and high schools were casualties, suffering what officials termed “obvious” damage. Damage to other county schools was possible as well, officials said. Officials received many calls about collapsed buildings, said Louisa County Fire Chief Scott Keim.

The exact location of the collapsed homes was not immediately available. Officials opened a shelter at Moss-Nuckols Elementary School for those forced out of their residences.

Both Louisa and Mineral are small and rural, and many of the structures in the area are one-story. In much of the countryside, damage wasn’t apparent at first glance. Officials called in a helicopter from the Virginia State Police to search for collapsed houses, since many aren’t visible from the road.

In Mineral, town council member Brooks Besley was working in a big straw hat with a broken crown, boarding up a shattered window in his tool dealership, when Willie Harper, the town manager, dropped in to talk with him.

Harper gestured to the hole where the plate glass had been.

“That’s a nice clean window you got right there,” he deadpanned.

The two started discussing possibilities for a temporary home for the town government. The town hall had suffered a rather severe ceiling collapse.

“I don’t think we’re going back in it until we have some substantial support in it,” Harper said. The town hall in Louisa was also put out of commission.

Randall Robinett was in the warehouse section of his shop, Main Street Computers and Music, in Louisa when the quake hit.

“I mean, this place started shaking,” he said. “I bolted out that door as fast as I could. This is an 1890s building.”