Is Los Angeles becoming too afraid of small earthquakes?

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Even small earthquakes are becoming a big deal these days.

I got my first hint of last week’s 4.4-magnitude earthquake through the Los Angeles Times’ instant messaging system. My colleagues in Hollywood, Highland Park, Pasadena and other places near the epicenter reported feeling the tremors seconds before the quake reached my home in Long Beach.

The newsroom sprang into action. There were no injuries or damage. It was a minor “chandelier shake” if ever there was one. But our five reports on the quake included the names of more than a dozen reporters and editors who contributed to the coverage.

This is our guide now. Earthquakes—even relatively small ones—are big news in California.

I'm old enough to remember that it wasn't always this way.

The intersection of Highways 5 and 14 on January 17, 1994, after the Northridge earthquake.

(Steve Dykes / Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles Times was previously an earthquake denier.

In the past, any earthquake below magnitude 5 would have merited a short newscast and a quick chat in the supermarket checkout line. But social media, advances in seismic technology (remember how long it took to pinpoint the epicenter and magnitude of an earthquake?) and our growing obsession with the California disaster have changed all that. Now the Times has a robot that “writes” the first report of the earthquake so we can get the news out quickly.

While our readers flock to this coverage, some traditional news purists are frustrated by the sheer amount of writing we do on what they consider minor news. Are you just trying to drive traffic? And what happens when something really big happens?

Earthquake mania is relatively new to Los Angeles newspapers.

For decades, the Times and other news organizations downplayed the danger of major earthquakes in the region, fearing they would scare away tourists and residents. When San Francisco was flattened in 1906, Los Angeles newspapers insisted that it couldn’t happen here: “Earthquakes in Southern California are not frequent and do not destroy human lives,” the Times declared.

When a devastating earthquake struck Long Beach in 1933, it made headlines. But the Times also criticized the East Coaster for exaggerating the extent of the damage and death toll under the headline “Yes, but where’s all the damage?” The main story was that rival cities like Miami were deliberately planting false stories about the earthquake risk in Los Angeles to scare people away.

The only exception was when a fake earthquake was able to cover up corruption, as Paul Haddad points out in his excellent history of early Los Angeles, The Invention of Paradise. Hoping to justify Los Angeles’s famous grab for the Owens River hundreds of miles away, the Times suggested that the river had once flowed toward Los Angeles, but a massive earthquake had caused mountains to rise and block the river.

“No geologists' opinions were cited,” Haddad noted.

When it comes to earthquakes, denial is dangerous.

California’s media approach to earthquakes began to change in the 1970s, when a series of major quakes turned seismology into a political issue. The 1971 Sylmar earthquake exposed serious flaws in some very common construction techniques. A brand-new hospital made of concrete collapsed, along with many unreinforced stone structures. The Times and other newspapers helped expose the weaknesses. Eventually, Los Angeles ordered thousands of old brick buildings to be renovated.

Then came three devastating earthquakes within a seven-year period—the Whittier Narrows earthquake in 1987, the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, and the Northridge earthquake in 1994. This sparked the largest earthquake safety campaign to date, which eventually covered highways, bridges, and hospitals.

But a major earthquake has not struck the heart of our most populous urban areas since then, and some seismic safety efforts in California have slowed.

The greatest seismic risk we face is denial, pushing the risks out of our minds instead of working together to make our city safer. Every earthquake is an opportunity to talk about the risks, consider how to better protect ourselves, and get some basic education in seismology. The Times’s efforts a decade ago helped push Los Angeles to require thousands of at-risk buildings to be retrofitted.

Earthquake denial takes many forms. In 1974, Times columnist Jack Smith took his daughter-in-law from France to see the movie “Earthquake!” at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. It was a surreal experience, to be in Hollywood and watch the filmmakers destroy Hollywood with a devastating earthquake, destroying everything, including the nearby Capitol Records building.

Afterward, Smith wrote, his young daughter-in-law asked him to drive by the historic building. “I just want to see if the building is still there. That would make me feel better.”

And so it was, and they both breathed a little easier.

But the imaginary horror of earthquakes shouldn’t distract us from the real threat. When it comes to Hollywood, the Times reports, earthquakes are certainly worrisome, but we can also work to make our structures safer.

If California's earthquake history is any indication, fear is the ultimate motivator.

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Finally…a great picture.

Show us your favorite place in California! Send us photos that express California and we may feature them in an issue of Essential California.

Horsemen at the Bill Pickett Rodeo at Industry Hills Expo Center in West Covina last year.

(Adam Davis)

Today's great photo is from Adam Davis. Here's what Davis wrote in his photo essay: “Little did I know when I walked into the Industry Hills Expo Center in West Covina recently for last year's first-ever Bill Pickett Horse Festival that I'd stumbled upon an event where black communities across the country come together annually for a day of fun, food, horseback riding and camaraderie.”

Have a great day, from the Essential California team.

Ryan Fonseca, reporter, Devin Carabatore, associate, Andrew Campa, Sunday reporter, Christian Orozco, assistant editor, Stephanie Chavez, deputy Metro editor, Karim Doumar, chief news editor

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