A sonic boom rolled across the Midlands on Thursday afternoon, startling people from Columbia into surrounding counties and reaching as far as Darlington and Chesterfield counties. The United States Geological Survey said the blast was felt across the region and estimated it originated in Saint Andrews.
The report drew quick attention because the noise and vibration spread so widely that it was first treated like a possible quake. The USGS later confirmed to WIS that it was not the result of an earthquake, and a spokesperson said there was no earthquake activity in or around Columbia.
The distinction mattered because the last reported tremor in or around Columbia was on May 22, and Thursday’s episode did not fit that pattern. WIS received reports from across Columbia and surrounding counties, then also from Darlington County and Chesterfield County, showing how far the sound traveled before the source was narrowed down.
USGS said standard magnitude calculation methods do not apply to sonic booms, so it manually assigned the event a magnitude of 0.0. The agency also said the location and origin time are approximate and were based on the arrival times of sound waves at seismic stations and the locations of eyewitness reports.
That left investigators still checking the most likely cause, and WIS said it reached out to the South Carolina Emergency Management Division, Fort Jackson and Shaw Air Force Base to verify it. The National Weather Service said it felt and heard the boom at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport, adding another official report from inside the city’s air corridor.
For people across the Midlands, the day ended with one clear answer: the jolt was real, but it was not an earthquake. The remaining question is not whether something was felt, but what produced a sonic boom strong enough to move so quickly across such a wide stretch of South Carolina.
