Collier County residents feel tremors from earthquake near Cuba

Residents and visitors in Collier County felt the ground shaking Monday just after 2 p.m. as tremors from a 6.1 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cuba reached Florida.

“I was sitting there perfectly still, perfectly quiet, and all of a sudden, my hand on the iPad started to vibrate,” Clel Dawson of Naples said.

Kathy Cook, a visitor to the area, described her experience.

“I definitely felt the chair shaking and the ground below my feet shaking,” she said.

Wayne Da San Martino, also from Naples, recalled the moment he realized what was happening.

“That’s when I told my wife, ‘Hey, we’re having an earthquake,’” he said.

Cook initially thought the shaking might have been caused by something else.

“I thought something happened, like a demolition of sorts,” she said.

Inside a 15-story building in Naples, people reported seeing items on their counters moving and feeling the entire building shake.

Da San Martino said he went downstairs to ask security about the incident.

“I came downstairs and asked security, and he said, 'There’s no earthquakes in Florida.' And I said, ‘Hey, we had one,’” he said. "I left San Francisco to get away from earthquakes, and now we're having them here, so hopefully I didn't bring them here right."

Although the shaking lasted for about five seconds, it left a lasting impression on those who experienced it, marking a moment the Gulf Coast will not soon forget.