Every day Mike Wilburn, a Mineral, Va., resident, semi-pro bass fisherman and retired Washington D.C. Metro System master mechanic with ties to Armstrong County, is on Lake Anna for some quiet and relaxing bass fishing.
But at about 1:50 p.m. on Tuesday, Wilburn's afternoon — alone in his bass boat in a cove on the man-made, 9,600-acre Lake Anna reservoir about 200 yards from the North Anna nuclear power plant — took an unexpected turn.
Wilburn said he heard a loud boom and saw black smoke coming from the plant; felt a sonic wave that came through the woods and across the water and watched the water bubbling up all around him.
"I thought it was a nuclear accident," said Wilburn. "It turned out to be the ripple affect of an earthquake underneath me. It lasted 15 to 20 seconds."
"I started freaking out and headed home," he said.
Wilburn was later told that what he heard and saw at the nuclear plant was the release valves kicking in and changing to diesel generating as part of an automatic safety mechanism.
Wilburn's little hometown of Mineral, a town of less than 500 people in central Virginia northwest of Richmond, as it turned out was at the epicenter of Tuesday's 5.9 magnitude quake that shook people all along the East Coast.
At home waiting for Wilburn to get back in his boat was his wife Lisa who met him at the dock.
"Lisa said the whole house shook," he said. "She was knocked down onto the floor."
Wilburn is the stepson of Ron Crytzer of the Dayton area. Crytzer grew up in Armstrong County and returned when he retired. He raised his family in the Washington area working as a Washington Metro police officer where he lived from 1960 to 1991 before coming back to Armstrong County. Crtytzer is the vice president of the Armstrong County Historical Society Museum and Genealogical Society.
"He was in eyeball distance of the power plant," said Crytzer. "There was a wave on the lake and the trees along the lake appeared to be moving to him. Mike said it scared the hell out of him. All in his house came off the wall. The chimney was twisted. Lisa got knocked off her feet. They slept in their Winnebago — they didn't know if the house was safe."
Crytzer said he remembers there being a controversy in the late 1960s or early 1970s when the power plant was built because it sat on a fault.
"All that matters is that we're safe and everything is good," said Wilburn. "But a lot of the businesses are still closed today (Wednesday) and a lot of things here are busted and broke."
