Earthquake reported west of Lake in the Hills

A 2.9 magnitude earthquake hit near Lake in the Hills Wednesday evening, according to the US Geological Survey.

The quake happened just after 6 p.m. about a mile west of Lake in the Hills and three miles northwest of Algonquin.

A quake at this magnitude is generally the smallest that can actually be felt by people. This quake's depth was shallow at 9 km, according to the US Geological Survey.

Word spread quickly through social media with people reporting that they heard a loud boom in surrounding towns including Island Lake, McHenry, Marengo, Elgin, Woodstock and Pell Lake, Wis., as well as house shaking that many mistook for a big truck rumbling by or children jumping upstairs.

Susan Potts and her two daughters were in the family room of their Huntley home when heard and felt the house shake.

"We felt the house jiggling and heard a little bit of a rumble, I'd say for maybe three slow seconds," Potts said. "My 7-year-old got nervous and said 'mommy, what's that? What's happening?'"

Initially unsure of what caused the boom-like noise, Potts said she checked her washer and dryer, which were running at the time, before checking outside her house.

"It was enough that I thought, 'Did somebody crash into our house? or maybe our pipes had burst,'" she said. Shortly after, neighbors in their subdivision near Huntley and Haligus roads began texting, and most said they felt it, she said.

"It was definitely noticed," she said. "Luckily, as far as I can tell, there's no damage. It was a very exciting spring break afternoon." ​

Others reported feeling nothing.

At Moretti's on Randall Road in Lake in the Hills, the earthquake was the main topic of conversation, although nobody there had felt it themselves, employees said.

Algonquin Police Sgt. Paul Riese said he felt nothing, but dispatchers took calls from people in Lake in the Hills and Crystal Lake who reported a loud boom.

"I had no knowledge of anything," Riese said. "My dispatcher called me later that we were notified that there was an earthquake in the area."

Sprint experienced an outage that began at about the same time the earthquake hit, but Sprint officials don't believe there's a connection between the two events.

The outage, which affected text and voice calls for customers throughout the Midwest states, impacted enough people that the police were notified.

"We have officers investigating it right now," said Matt Mannino, the officer in charge for Lake in the Hills police. "We've heard from family members who can't get in contact with people in our area. We're getting some reports that there may be some phone interruptions." ​

The outage was resolved by 8 p.m., Sprint communications manager Yui Namiki said.

"We're assuming it was a coincidence," Namiki said. "We're looking into it, but as of right now, we just experienced a hardware issue."