Yeah, as a Nevada native, 5s are pussy shit and occur pretty frequently here. People who think 5s mean anything have either never been in an earthquake or live in some shithole where they build shit out of/on sand. It doesn't really get rough until you start creeping close to 6.5+.5 isn't a powerful earthquake. Feels like people are trying to gin up fear.
I hate to be the Actually guy, but the Richter scale is logarithmic not exponential.