Loud booms rattle nerves on Beacon Hill, elsewhere

Two loud booms just before 2:00 pm startled people throughout a large part of Western Washington today. BHB news partner The Seattle Times reports that they were sonic booms, caused by two F-15 jets that were scrambled in response to a violation of the temporary airspace restrictions put in place for President Obama’s visit today.

Here at the BHB the booms felt (and sounded) as if something had slammed into the south wall of the building. The cats freaked out a bit.

Twitter lit up with reports from people who heard the booms and wondered what happened. According to Travis Mayfield at KOMO, people have reported hearing the booms from Chehalis in the south all the way north to Edmonds.

Did you hear the booms? Tell us about it in the comments here.

(Ed. Note: Post updated at 2:59 to reflect that they were F-15s, not F-16s.)

4 thoughts on “Loud booms rattle nerves on Beacon Hill, elsewhere”

  1. I heard both booms loud and clear in the house. The first time it happened, I thought somebody threw a large boulder and hit my house very hard. The 2nd time was scary too.

    This was a good lesson on how sonic booms sound.

  2. Heard them in Sunset Hill neighborhood of Seattle…thought a boat down by the locks had blown up.

  3. Was napping and heard them – waited to see if they were followed by sirens. When no sirens sounded, I went back to sleep.

  4. Thanks for the hat tip and for the retweets.

    It was a crazy (and I mean CRAZY) 45 minutes in the newsroom.

    I’m a little disappointed not to have heard the boom myself (guess the KOMO newsroom is pretty sound proof ha!)

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