A strong earthquake hits Northern California. 70,000 people without electricity

A powerful earthquake shook a rural stretch of the Northern California coast early Tuesday, waking residents, cutting power to 70,000 people and damaging some buildings and roads, officials said. At least 11 injuries have been reported.

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.

There was “some damage” to buildings and infrastructure in Humboldt County, and two area hospitals lost power and were running on generators, but the amount of damage appears to be “minimal” compared to the quake’s strength, according to Brian Ferguson, a spokesman for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.

The area is part of the remote northern coast of sparsely populated California, home to redwood forests, mountains, the port, and the state university. Long before marijuana was legalized, Humboldt was part of the three-county Emerald Triangle where clandestine cannabis production was legendary.

Eleven people have been reported injured, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement released in the early afternoon. Officials said two people died as a result of “medical emergencies” during or immediately after the quake.

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

Gilarducci did not have specific details on the extent of the damage to structures and infrastructure, saying that assessments were still ongoing. He said that includes the number of homes that could be damaged severely enough to displace residents.

“This is another example of the fact that earthquakes can happen at any time without warning,” he said.

Authorities closed an important damaged bridge in Ferndale. The state highway department tweeted a photo showing the deflated sidewalk.

State Senator Mike McGuire, who represents the district, said Rio del Rio, with a population of just a few thousand, had sustained most of the damage. McGuire said he was not in the area at the time of the quake, but he had received reports of “violent” and incessant shaking.

He said there was a confirmed structural fire, some buildings collapsed from their foundations, and the municipal water system was damaged, but it was not clear if any of the homes and businesses had lost access to water.

Authorities said more than 70,000 people were without electricity.

McGuire said power was outages on the main transmission line that runs into the area and Pacific Gas & Electric’s restoration work had been slowed because rain prevented a helicopter from being used to assess the damage. He said the utility expects electricity to be back on by evening, but residents should be prepared for more time without power.

PG&E did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but tweeted that crews were responding to an assessment of their systems and “doing everything they can to minimize power and gas outages.”

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.

The city of Eureka, which has a population of 26,000, said on its website that “no significant damage was reported” immediately.

Eureka resident Dan Dixon, 40, said he and his wife were asleep when he woke them up and shook everything, throwing photos in their home on the floor. He said their infant daughter fell asleep during this.

“It was probably the most violent earthquake we’ve felt in the 15 years I’ve lived here,” he said. “She physically moved our bed.”

Ferndale resident Caroline Titus posted a video of her dark home of battered furniture and smashed dishes.

“Our house is a 140 year old Victorian. The north/south shaking is very evident as it fell,” she wrote on Twitter.

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’re at this moment in geological time where the most exciting and dynamic area in California happens to be Humboldt County and the adjacent marine area,” said Lori Dengler, professor emeritus of geology at Cal Poly Humboldt.

It’s not uncommon for there to be uncertainty about damages after a major earthquake, Dengler said. But she noted that most of the area is rural and the construction of wooden structures is common, which in the past has helped limit damage.

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 which can give people a notice to take safety precautions in seconds before a strong shaking reaches them.

Gilarducci said the system sent alerts to about 3 million people in Northern California early Tuesday. “The system worked as well as we had hoped,” he said.

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.

The epicenter of this earthquake was in El Cerrito, about 16 miles (25 kilometers) drive from downtown San Francisco.

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