Violent California earthquake destroys homes and disrupts electricity

RIO DEL, Calif. (AP) — A powerful earthquake rocked the Northern California coast early Tuesday, waking residents as it shattered glass, shook homes off their foundations, damaged roads and left nearly 60,000 homes and businesses in rural areas Without electricity and many without water. At least 12 people were injured.

“I felt like my roof was going down,” Cassondra Stoner said. “The only thing I was thinking was, ‘Get the freaky kids. ”

When the ground stopped moving, the Stoner family was doing just fine — even a daughter who grew up through the paddle. But when she showed up for work at Dollar General, she found tiles had fallen from the ceiling, shelves overturned and the contents of the discount store she ran strewn on the floor.

The 6.4-magnitude quake occurred at 2:34 a.m. near Ferndale, a small community about 210 miles (345 kilometers) northwest of San Francisco and close to the Pacific coast. The epicenter was offshore at a depth of about 10 miles (16 kilometres). Numerous aftershocks followed.

Known for its redwood forests, scenic mountains, and the legendary marijuana crop in the Emerald Triangle, people in the area are used to earthquakes. But many said this was far more violent and disturbing than the usual rolling motion they experience.

“You could see the floor and walls shaking,” said Araceli Huerta, who was still shaking about 10 hours later. “It looked like a freight train was passing through my house.”

Damage to buildings and infrastructure is still being assessed. Two hospitals in Humboldt County lost power and were running using generators, but the extent of damage appears to be minimal compared to the strength of the quake, according to Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the California governor’s office of emergency services.

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Humboldt County on Tuesday night.

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office reported at a press conference that approximately 12 people sustained injuries, including a broken hip and a head wound. Two people died – 83 years old and 72 years old – because they were unable to get timely care for “medical emergencies” during or immediately after the earthquake.

The damage was mostly concentrated in the small communities of Rio Del, Ferndale and Fortuna, said Mark Gilarducci, director of emergency services, during a news conference in Sacramento.

At least 15 homes were severely damaged and deemed uninhabitable and another 18 were moderately damaged, officials said after a partial assessment in Rio del Rey, a small village of about 3,000 people where the destruction was worst. He estimated the number of displaced people at 30 and said that this number may rise to 150 after a full count of the damage.

The city’s water system has been shut down for repairs for two days due to leaks. Portable toilets were installed at the city hall and water was distributed at the fire station.

A bridge over the Eel River built in 1911 that is the main thoroughfare into Ferndale has been destroyed and closed to traffic, requiring a longer detour through the mountains to reach the quaint Victorian town, where all of Main Street is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Caroline Titus, former owner of the Ferndale Enterprise, said the quake blew out a few windows in storefronts. In her 140-year-old home, plants fell, the coffee shop smashed to the floor, pictures fell off the wall and books flew off the shelves.

“It’s all just some kind of hurt in the ass,” Titus said.

Since a 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit the area in 1992, which injured hundreds, started fires and destroyed many homes, Titus said, building codes have required modifications to make the structures more vibration-resistant.

However, she said, every powerful earthquake triggering the same fear: “Is this it. Is this the Nine Pointer?”

In an echo of the 1992 earthquake, a volunteer with the Rio Del Fire Department initially delayed responding to about 60 calls involving two fires because garage doors were off hinges and had to be opened, Chief Shane Wilson said. Three decades ago, homes in nearby Petrolia burned down because a firefighter’s garage door malfunctioned and the motors got trapped inside.

Senator Mike McGuire, who represents the district, said power outages affected the main transmission line that runs to the district and Pacific Gas & Electric’s restoration work has slowed because rain prevented a helicopter from being used to assess the damage.

The company said it expects power to return within 24 hours. The crew had restored power to about 40,000 customers — more than half of those affected by the outage — by Tuesday evening.

Humboldt County has a population of about 136,000 and is located in a part of the state that has a long history of large earthquakes, including magnitude 7.0 in 1980 and magnitude 6.8 in 2014, according to the California Earthquake Service.

Dennis Leonardi drove through the night from the San Francisco Bay Area back to his dairy farm in Ferndale, then had to take a long detour because the bridge was out.

Leonardi spent two hours cleaning glass after the earthquake nearly shook a staircase open in his home, knocking over a wardrobe and pulling furniture and appliances from where they had been nailed to the wall for earthquake safety. A glass cabinet with memorabilia, ornaments, and family photos “walked by itself” off the wall, and a fridge and freezer “glimmered its way across” the garage.

“The cows were just dancing to some rock and roll today,” he said, noting that his herd seemed fine but might have been terrified of the noise of everything “moving around.”

Larkin O’Leary, 41, traveled from Santa Rosa for her wedding anniversary with her husband in Ferndale, where they were hit by an earthquake last year. They decide to try again and book the romance package at a historic inn, same place a year ago.

O’Leary said she woke up at 2:30 a.m. feeling strange and tried to go back to sleep.

“I lay down again and it was as if someone had jumped on the bed,” she said. “It was absolutely terrifying…. I shook in a way I had never experienced before. It was up and down all over.”

The couple quickly exited Ferndale and returned to their home.

“It won’t happen again,” O’Leary said.

The earthquake occurred in an area known as the Mendocino Triple Junction, where three tectonic plates meet.

“We are at this moment in geological time where Humboldt County and the adjacent marine area just happen to be the most exciting and dynamic region in California,” said Lori Dengler, Professor Emeritus of Geology at Cal Poly Humboldt.

The earthquake triggered a massive response by the West Coast Alert System which detects the onset of an earthquake and sends alerts to mobile phones in the affected area that can give people a notice to take safety precautions in seconds before a strong shaking reaches them.

Officials said the system sent alerts to about 3 million people in Northern California early Tuesday.

The quake came just days after a small 3.6-magnitude quake struck the San Francisco Bay Area, waking thousands of people up before 4 a.m. Saturday and causing minor damage.

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Antczak reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press reporters Sophie Austin in Sacramento, Amy Thaksin in Orange County, and Brian Milley in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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