Minor earthquake startles Pierre area residents

Oahe Dam to undergo inspection following quake along Missouri River

Screenshot of US Geological Survey website showing Peak Ground Acceleration on May 30, 2024, 2:39pm CT, earthquake about 24 miles north, northwest of Pierre and Fort Pierre, SD. (Dakota Radio Group)

Residents of central South Dakota were surprised Thursday afternoon to feel the ground shaking underneath them.

At roughly 2:40 central standard time, a 3.7 magnitude earthquake struck the area, the epicenter roughly 24 miles northwest of Pierre along the banks of the Missouri River, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) — an organization that tracks earthquakes across the globe.

Earthquakes are measured on a seismographic network that detects the magnitude of vibrations on a scale ranging from 3.0 to 8.0, with the higher numbers being more severe. Most quakes don’t cause damage until at least reaching 5.0 or higher.

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Hughes County Sheriff Patrick Callahan noted that there had not been any reported injuries or damages in the area, but that they had received calls from at least three different counties with reports of having felt the vibrations.

Many locals in the region said that the tremors were more than enough to notice, while others reported having objects fall off of shelves in their home or workplace.

“My whole house shook out by the bridges,” said one of hundreds of comments on a Facebook post by local radio station KCCR.

“Felt it in Vivian,” said another.

“I’m near the bowling alley and my whole house shook for a few seconds!”

And though the tremor has all but appeared to only create a lasting memory for area residents who experienced it, federal officials in the area haven’t passed it off completely.

Officials with the Army Corps of Engineers, which monitors and maintains the Oahe Dam west of Pierre, told Dakota Radio Group that they have established protocols in place for occurrences like these.

“We will have a team of engineers from the project or who work at the Oahe Dam who will go out and look for things that have been effected,” said Eileen Williamson, Deputy Director of Public Affairs for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Northwestern Division. “They go out and check equipment… if they notice anything that needs to be addressed they will go about getting it addressed.”

Though South Dakota is not prone to earthquakes, they are not an anomaly to the state either. Earlier this year, a minor 2.5 quake struck near Santee, Nebraska — along the border with the Rushmore state. And in 2011, the same year as massive flooding in the area, an earthquake struck just west of Fort Pierre.

According to USGS, the largest earthquake to ever hit South Dakota was in 1964 south of Martin.

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