An earthquake centered 10 miles northeast of Sanford struck southern Maine at 7:22 p.m. on October 16 according to the United States Geological Service. The tremors could be felt in Boothbay and as far as Augusta, and Boston, Mass.

At 4.0 (downgraded from a 4.6) on the Richter Magnitude Scale, the earthquake is defined as "light." By comparison, the earthquake in Japan in March of 2011 was a 9.03.

The largest Maine earthquake was a 5.1 in 1904. Maine has an earthquake about the size of the October 16 earthquake every 24 years.

“I was just sitting in my living room and the books on my bookshelf starting shaking," Barters Island resident Lonnie Gisi said. “It felt like a truck was driving through my house."

Other Boothbay residents reported feeling tremors for about  8-10 seconds.

The Wiscasset Speedway neighborhood on West Alna Road in Wiscasset was another one of the many spots a quake was felt, heard, or both.

The Speedway’s owner Richard Jordan said volunteers were going to check around the property to make sure the quake hadn’t caused any damage. At home in Kingfield, he said he felt something but didn’t realize at first what it was. “I couldn’t tell whether we were getting some gusts of wind or whether there was a logging truck going by,” he said.

Jenny Gray was on Facebook at her West Alna Road, Wiscasset home, roughly a mile from the racetrack, when she thought the wind might be picking up. “But then there was like a force. It came right out of the west.  It was just a succession of waves… It would rattle, rattle, rattle and then stop for a second and then come again. There were like three or four pulses,” Gray said.

Gray was glad to still be able to get on Facebook after the quake. “It’s a great comfort to be able to talk to people on there,” she said.

Gray wasn’t planning on looking around outside until sunrise, and she found no damage inside the home. Pots rattled, but nothing fell to the floor, she said.

Rhonda Hamlin, who lives next door to the racetrack, was in her craft room sewing a quilt when the quake hit. She felt the vibration and there was a “growl” that sounded like a snowplow truck driving by, Hamlin said.

Her son, Brunswick resident George Hamlin, reported that his children’s backpacks swung back and forth as they hung on the wall during the quake.

Hamlin said the quake did not seem to have bothered her horse.

Patsy Messier’s pets “didn’t act weird or anything” at the time of the quake, the Bradford Road, Wiscasset resident said. But she certainly noticed it. “It was like you were in a boat in the ocean, it was a rocking sensation,” Messier said.

The Speedway’s owner Richard Jordan said volunteers were going to check around the property to make sure the quake hadn’t caused any damage. At home in Kingfield, he said he felt something but didn’t realize at first what it was. “I couldn’t tell whether we were getting some gusts of wind or whether there was a logging truck going by,” he said.

The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department received some calls from people saying they had felt the quake but no one so far has reported any damage.

Lincoln County Emergency Management Agency’s director Tod Hartung could not immediately be reached for comment but Kenneth Desmond, who heads up training and operations, was not aware of any reports of damage. The agency reviews federal and state information about earthquakes but that is usually the extent of training specifically for earthquakes since they have not been a problem in this region, Desmond said.

Desmond was at the Boothbay Harbor fire house for training when the quake hit and he didn’t feel it, he said.

Neither did Edgecomb’s Emergency Management Agency director and Assistant Fire Chief Larry Omland. He was at the Edgecomb fire station and only knew about the quake when he got a text message through an “app” for a local television station. He was not aware of any local reports of damage.

Alna Fire Chief Mike Trask’s family “all felt it,” except for him. “I slept right through it,” he said. He hadn’t gotten any reports of problems in the town stemming from the quake.