my family is safe and all is well. but i was worried.
ALUM ROCK, Calif. -- A moderate earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay area Tuesday night, but there was no immediate word on any damage or injuries.
The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.6 and struck shortly after 8 p.m., about 9 miles northeast of San Jose, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The California Highway Patrol has received no reports of damage or injuries, spokesman Tom Marshall said.
Residents reported feeling the quake, which lasted about a minute, as far east as Sacramento and as far north as San Rafael, north of San Francisco.
The quake was centered in the foothills east of San Jose, not far from the home of the city's mayor, Chuck Reed. His home wasn't damaged, and he alerted staff members by text message only seconds after the rumblings began, said Reed's spokeswoman, Michelle McGurk.
The city hadn't received any reports of damage, McGurk said.
"Nothing so far. The mayor's fine. His home's fine, City Hall is fine," McGurk said. "We are getting assessments from city staff, and as soon as we know if there's any damage we'll be responding."
Rod Foo, a resident of south San Jose, about 10 miles from the epicenter, said everything in his house shook for several seconds, but the electricity never went out and his telephone was still working.
"I could hear it coming up the street before it hit the house," said Foo, a former reporter with the San Jose Mercury News. "I thought it was the kids messing around at first, then I felt the house shaking and I knew it was an earthquake. ... It was rattling for a long time and really loud."
Allison Guimard, 25, a technology executive who lives in Mountain View, about 18 miles west of the epicenter, said her china started shaking and she grabbed a dog. It was the first significant earthquake for she and her husband, Pierre, who moved here from New York six months ago.
"It felt like the apartment was rolling -- shaking and rolling," said Pierre Guimard, 25, a home entertainment installer. "Almost like a boat on the water."
A woman who lives in the Santa Teresa area, near Oakridge Mall said it shook her house. She said it felt like a hammer slammed into the house four times.
The house had many frames on the wall that swayed and were left askew, but no damage, she told NBC11. She also said the shaking created a wake in her swimming pool.
There were also reported of burst water pipes and some cracks in the walls in south San Jose.
Pacific Gas and Electric told NBC11 there were no power outages associated to the earthquake.
A NBC11 viewer from Manteca said they felt like someone kicked the back of their couch and their fireplace tools started swaying. Their daughter in Stockton said her furniture actually moved with her in it by the shaking.
Bay Area Rapid Transit trains were stopped for five minutes after the quake occurred, said BART spokesman Linton Johnson. Standard protocol for BART trains is to have the operators start running the trains again but only at half speed.
The operators will drive slowly while looking out the window for damage on the tracks, said Johnson.
Fire stations in San Francisco manually rolled up their garage doors as a precaution, NBC11 reported.
