The magnitude-5.0 earthquake that struck near Cushing on Sunday caused one minor injury and damaged about 50 buildings. The shaking forced authorities to evacuate an assisted living center and left piles of rubble and broken glass on the streets.
Emergency crews worked through the night to secure buildings and survey destruction after the quake, which knocked out power and sheared brick facades off century-old buildings.
The quake renewed concerns about shaking near one of the country’s largest crude oil storage hubs. The quake does not appear to have damaged the Cushing oil terminal -- championed as the “pipeline crossroads of the world” -- where tens of millions of barrels of oil are stored in fields of airplane hangar-sized tanks. Cushing City Manager Stephen Spears:
"The oil companies themselves are doing their own assessments. It was my understanding they shut down operations after the earthquake yesterday."
Activity at the oil hub has since resumed.
Last year, scientists and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sounded alarms about earthquakes near the oil center, where tens of millions of barrels of crude are stored.
State regulators today were drafting a plan to shut down and limit activity at wastewater injection wells -- a type of well scientists have linked to Oklahoma’s earthquake boom.
