The reason why cell networks went down following the East Coast quake
Landline and cell service was disrupted along the Eastern seaboard, including in New York City and Boston. Verizon, AT&T, and others said there was no damage to their networks. The thing is: the cell networks weren’t physically damaged by the earthquake. The tremors didn’t bring down any relay towers or wires. But because the quake was felt so widely – from North Carolina to New England – it prompted millions of people to make cellphone calls at the same time. This increased traffic brought cell networks to their knees for about half an hour.
The 5.9-magnitude tremor struck at about 2pm local time with shallow tremors of about 3.7 miles deep, which is thought to explain why the shaking was so widespread.
It is though to have been the strongest quake to hit the Virginia area for seven decades.
The previous record for an earthquake in Washington D.C. was on July 16, 2010, when a 3.6 magnitude one struck.
There were no immediate reports of deaths, but fire officials said there were injuries.
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