Despite three previous minor earthquakes centered in the Lake Erie area over the past 24 years, most people of Western Pennsylvania generally regard the phenomenon as someone else's problem.

That's why a quake Wednesday, which was centered in the town of Buckingham, Quebec, in Canada — but which sent out surface waves that were felt even in some multi-story buildings in Pittsburgh — produced initial surprise, as well as some concern about whether there might be something worse ahead.

In the minds of some people, after learning the reason for the shaking that they felt at approximately 1:43 p.m. in this part of the state, the immediate questions might have been: "What if?" and "Is there the potential for a major quake here?"

For some people who experienced Wednesday's tremor, questions like that might in fact be ongoing.

In Pittsburgh, a city not usually equated with the possibility for an earthquake, Wednesday provided the incentive for officials to at least briefly ponder how the city might respond to a quake closer and more powerful than Wednesday's 5.0 Canada event — and that question even can be regarded as relevant for smaller communities like Butler.

According to the Lehigh (University) Earth Observatory in Bethlehem, a 1994 earthquake in Reading, Berks County, in eastern Pennsylvania was "just a reminder that there is still a possibility of an earthquake in Pennsylvania."

Western Pennsylvania has had closer-to-home reminders of that reality, of course, in the three Lake Erie area quakes that occurred on Jan. 31, 1986; Sept. 25, 1998; and Jan. 26, 2001.

Fortunately, there wasn't any serious Western Pennsylvania damage resulting from Wednesday's earthquake, with the quake's biggest casualties apparently being three buildings in Gracefield, Quebec.

Russell Pysklywec, a University of Toronto geologist, was quoted by a Pittsburgh newspaper Thursday as saying that the shaking in Western Pennsylvania was the shock rippling outward from where the quake struck.

Some office workers in Pittsburgh chose to leave their buildings for awhile after feeling the effects of the quake.

Fortunately, as the Lehigh Earth Observatory points out, Pennsylvania is on fairly steady ground. However, Lehigh makes another interesting point: Because many of the rocks in Pennsylvania are old, crystalline and fractured, when a magnitute 4 or 5 earthquake strikes the state, the energy from the earthquate is transferred much more quickly and farther than in the western United States.

"An earthquake that causes little damage in California, Oregon or Washington may cause considerably more damage in the eastern United States," the observatory notes.

It took only two minutes for Wednesday's Canada quake to be felt 400 miles away in Pittsburgh.

Wednesday's event might not be a serious wake-up call for Pennsylvania, but it was a small reminder that this state is not immune from the possibility of an earthquake — that "someone else's problem" isn't necessarily that far from home.

Those whose nerves were rattled Wednesday now more fully appreciate the horror that Haitians endured during a magnitude 7.0 quake that devastated their nation on Jan. 12.