Employees at a Chantilly automobile repair shop were filming a customer-service ad for their Facebook page Tuesday afternoon when the earthquake struck, visibly shaking the room and sending the shop general manager to the floor. 

The film was meant as a short promo for two new VIP customer waiting rooms that had been installed at G & C Tire & Auto Service, on Willard Rd., said David Harmon, the shop’s general manager. 

On the film, Harmon introduces himself and is quickly cut short when the room starts to shake violently, a lamp rattles in the background and Harmon asks the cameraman “do you feel that?” 

The camera is thrown around wildly, just swinging around at the last minute to show Harmon on the floor behind a heavy office chair as an off-camera voice shouts “what was that?” 

The temblor totally caught Harmon by surprise, he said. “During the filming, we were on the top floor of an old wooden building and it was a-rocking pretty good. I reached out for the chair for support and it swiveled me right to the floor.” 

Although he felt a rumbling in his feet just before the quake hit, he thought nothing of it at first. “We work in an auto shop and a big truck coming in can make you feel a rumble,” he said. 

Afterward, Harmon and other supervisors rushed through the shop, checking employees and equipment. “We are an auto-shop after all and we had to make sure everybody was OK and all the (power and fluid) lines were shut off.” 

Other than a few cracks in the ceiling, the shop sustained no damage and no one was injured, he said. 

It was Harmon’s first quake and he said: “I'm good with just one. It’s unsettling having your feet moving around like that.”