Scioto County by no means was the epicenter of a magnitude 5.2 earthquake that rattled the Midwest Friday morning, but that didn't keep area residents from feeling the quake's effects.

The initial earthquake struck just before 5:37 a.m., and was centered six miles from West Salem, Ill.

"I was asleep, and it did wake me up out of bed," said Scioto County Emergency Management director Kim Carver. "It jogged me awake, and it jogged my conscience that we may need to do more in earthquake preparedness in this area."

At the time the quake hit, Shawnee State University recorded the impact on its seismograph.

"In 1999, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) funds through the (Ohio) Department of Natural Resources were used to establish a seismic network called Ohio Seis," said Jeff Bauer, Ph.D., who, along with Kurt Shoemaker, Ph.D., is a geologist in the natural sciences department at Shawnee State University.

On Friday morning, Bauer stood before a computer screen showing the effects of the earthquake.

"Prior to 1999, Ohio was listed as having the lowest probability of receiving an earthquake. But after 1999, we moved up to next to lowest, and that made a big difference," he said. "So they pumped money into the state to set up a seismic network."

Bauer said ODNR decided to set up a series of stations around the state with new equipment, and while the actual recording equipment may not look impressive, he said it records crucial data.

The seismograph is a glass tube that contains all of the equipment, and is located on a concrete floor in a remote area of Massie Hall. There, it picks up vibrations from earthquakes, and has done so for nine years.

"Believe it or not, earthquakes have been fairly consistent over the last few years, especially in northern Ohio," Bauer said. "This equipment actually picked up the tsunami in December of 2004."

That tsunami, centered in Sumatra, Indonesia, killed more than 225,000 people in 11 countries.

A seismograph printout on a computer monitor in the natural sciences department showed wide-sweeping measurements at the center of the quake, then the waves lessened as the measurement moved away from the center.

"The waves are faster at the center. Then they spread out, and the waves travel slower as the measurement gets farther away from the center," Bauer said. "According to the computer, the quake hit at 5:38 a.m., and it was not that large, somewhere around a 5 to a 5 1/2."

He said there are three distinct measurements of waves.

The first readings are referred to as "P" waves, the "P" standing for primary.

These are the most rapid waves that vibrate back and forth in the ground in the direction it is moving, and travels at about four miles per second.

The second set of readings are called "S" waves, meaning secondary. Bauer said the main difference being is waves don't move back and forth, but instead, move in a "scissors" motion at about half the speed of "P" waves.

The final measurements are called "surface" waves, which are slower and are concentrated on the surface of the earth.

Bauer said another measurement is known as the Mercalli Intensity Scale.

"It is how people felt the earthquake, and where they live," he said. "It measures how intense the quake activity was in certain places."

Bauer said an earthquake is the shaking of the ground, and most often is associated with faults such as the San Andreas Fault in the western part of the U.S.

"You have a lot of old fault systems that are deeply buried in the region," he said. "There is the Kentucky River Fault that is not very active.

Bauer said the Midwest also has seen its fair share of large quakes.

"The New Madrid Sound, or zone, located in Missouri - located right on the Mississippi River - has been a very active zone. Not as active as the San Andreas Fault, but the biggest shake was in 1812," he said. "It was so intense, it caused the bells to ring in a steeple in Boston. If we were to have that same event again, it would destroy places on the river, such as St. Louis and Memphis. There would be very few structures left, and in this area, we would see considerable damage."

Bauer said buildings locally would develop cracks and chimneys would fall.

"It would be scary as hell," he said. "It sometimes takes events like this to wake people up, and to show people how important it is to have the equipment we need, and to make sure the funding is there."

Carver said while she did not receive a lot of reports, the quake affected people locally in different ways.

"We had no evidence of any damages that we are aware of. In fact, a lot of people never even felt it," she said. "Some people who were awake said they didn't feel it, and some people who were asleep said they did."

Carver said her agency educates the public on how to stay safe from weather issues, but she said it may not do enough on earthquake safety.

"Maybe we need to do more with our kids in schools. I am speaking to kids at New Boston in a couple of weeks, and I was thinking about getting them some literature on the subject," she said. "But do adults even know what to do?"

Jeff Perez, executive director, Office of Communications and Government Affairs at SSU, said the school, and specifically the natural sciences department, is attempting to track the effects of the earthquake locally by providing an e-mail site for people to respond to.

"We want to know their names and addresses, so that we can track the effects locally," he said.

Perez said people can send local earthquake information to jbauerquakereport@shawnee.edu.