Another Windsor Start article with a facebook link....
www.windsorstar.com...
WINDSOR -- Valerie Chedour says she worried she might be "going nuts" after hearing mysterious rumbling noises at her Woodslee home.
On Friday, she was relieved to learn she's not alone.
Dozens of Star readers phoned or emailed Friday following a story about strange vibrations in the area to say they too have experienced it.
The calls came from Windsor and Essex County as far away as Amherstburg and Colchester North.
"It's like a low-grade rumble," said Chedour who lives on Belle River Road. "At first, I thought it was trouble with my furnace. It's not. Then I
wondered about heavy machinery, then it happened in the middle of the night. There is no pattern or rhythm to it.
"At least I know now I'm not going nuts and hearing things, that it's for real."
Theories on the cause among callers ranged from windmills, Zug Island industry, ships on the waterways, truck traffic and earthquakes.
"That noise has literally been driving me crazy," said Irene Sorrell who lives on California Avenue near Assumption high school. "It shook my
house. I thought it was a kid in front of my house with a boom box and I look and there is nobody there.
"I wish the heck I knew what it was. It's like a bloody semi was in my yard."
Ontario's Ministry of Environment has begun an investigation to rule out possible industrial sources causing the mysterious vibrations.
It was launched earlier this week following nine formal complaints and several phone inquiries -largely from residents in west Windsor.
The local ministry office Friday encouraged residents to keep track of the rumblings or what they are hearing.
"We are taking the approach the more information we can obtain the better," said Teri Gilbert, issues project co-ordinator for the local Environment
Ministry office. "It will help us to look at the concerns.
"Every possible scenario is speculation at this point."
The ministry prefers residents to log any vibrations or noise for the next two weeks and then pass on the information to local officials.
"But we will continue to respond to any call and concerns," she said. "People can give us a call with any possible impacts related to industrial
operations."
West-end resident Gary Grosse has started a Facebook site to log times, dates and locations of the rumblings. The group name is The Windsor/ Essex
County Hum.
"We wish to assist any govern-mental agency to get to the bottom of this most annoying and obtrusive mystery," he said.
Sylvia Hayek, a seismologist with Natural Resources Canada in Ottawa, said the last earthquake registered in Essex County occurred on Feb. 23 and
measured 3.0. There was a 2.7 aftershock the next day.
The impact of those events would have been noticeable for only a few seconds causing small rumblings and possibly a sound like that of a passing
train, she said.
"You are in a pretty quiet region, in general, for earthquakes," Hayek said.
"We have not recorded anything large in your area (the last couple of months). Certainly nothing persistent or in a bunch. That would have stuck
out."
WHERE TO CALL
The Ministry of the Environment can be called during weekday business hours at 519-948-1464 or after-hours at 1-800-268-6060.