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Strongest earthquake in years rattles Southern California

169 points| jaredwiener | 6 years ago |latimes.com | reply

90 comments

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[+] nostrademons|6 years ago|reply
Note that this quake was not on the San Andreas - it was in the Eastern California Shear Zone, a separate fault system near Death Valley. The epicenter was about 125 miles away from LA, and almost closer to Las Vegas (which also felt this quake). The limited damage was largely because it was far away from any populated areas - the nearest cities are Ridgecrest (pop 27,000) and Trona (pop < 2000).
[+] cgoecknerwald|6 years ago|reply
I felt this (near Caltech, Pasadena). I spent the entire duration trying to figure out what was shaking my desk.

I hope this doesn't trigger anything larger. Does anybody know if this was close enough to the fault line to possibly affect anything?

EDIT: I see they have updated the article to a 1 in 20 chance.

[1] https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/ [2] https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci38443095...

[+] rjurney|6 years ago|reply
Small earthquakes are a good thing, not a bad thing. They relieve stress on the fault without having a major slippage. I think.
[+] iscrewyou|6 years ago|reply
It was felt all the way out to the west coast (which is where the big fault line is). To answer your question, only time will tell.
[+] tanderson92|6 years ago|reply
I was only a few miles away in San Gabriel and did not feel a thing; I wonder if the SGV blocked any of the waves.

Wish I had come to campus early today to feel that one.

[+] cgoecknerwald|6 years ago|reply
"Only 10 percent of California's 7 million plus homeowners have earthquake insurance – and the number has dropped by more than half since the deadly quake" (2014)

You can get an estimate for an earthquake insurance policy with the California Earthquake Authority.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/why-do-so-few-ca... [2] https://www.earthquakeauthority.com/

[+] TimTheTinker|6 years ago|reply
I'm not clear how a CEA policy makes financial sense for a standard single-family, owner-occupied house. The only affordable plans have massive deductibles and only partial cost coverage. If "the big one" hits, it's likely that:

(a) CEA will quickly run out of money and I won't be covered anyway.

(b) The whole community will be ruined so assuming all of my family is still alive we'd best move somewhere else anyway (and a rebuild or undamaged house wouldn't sell).

(c) Some kind of government bailout or community help program will be available.

For smaller earthquakes, it's likely I'd either fail to meet my deductible or be unable to pay the non-covered portion (which has to be paid out first before they'll begin to pay for further repairs).

Am I wrong, or is there something I'm missing? I wish this weren't the case.

[+] Zafira|6 years ago|reply
I understand why people keep bring up earthquake insurance, but it's not that many of us haven't considered it. It can be expensive to the extent that you are better off reinforcing your home rather than spending any money on said insurance. "The expensive deductible related to earthquake insurance are sometimes as high as 15% of the value of the home, which has many homeowners giving the insurance a second thought."[1]

Most insurance companies bailed out of the business of earthquake insurance after Northridge because when it happens, the claims are enormous. The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake was an indirect factor that lead to the Panic of 1907 due to the high volume of insurance claims.

[1]https://www.marketwatch.com/story/25-years-after-bay-area-qu...

[+] jtdev|6 years ago|reply
Why? So the sleazy insurance companies can deny or only pay a small percentage of your claim?? No thanks, the insurance industry has reduced itself to a rent seeking, regulatory capture machine with nearly zero value proposition for customers at this point.
[+] reverite|6 years ago|reply
There's a few articles that go into a loosely defined faulting area dubbed the Walker Lane[1][2][3] in which it's theorized that the East Pacific Rise (a rift), under the Gulf of California, may be expanding directly north. I know some geologists were surprised at first at the 7.4 Landers earthquake in 1994, and the article goes into that the Walker Lane seems to follow US 395, so I wonder if this is just a continuing extension of geologic activity associated with it.

[1] https://volcanohotspot.wordpress.com/2018/09/21/splitting-no...

[2] https://www.wired.com/story/walker-lane-move-over-san-andrea...

[3] http://www.bldgblog.com/2019/04/walker-lane/

[+] ralusek|6 years ago|reply
I feel like we're woefully underprepared for earthquakes. It feels like pushing away technical debt on a societal scale.
[+] JDazzle|6 years ago|reply
There are so many building regulations, and grants to help older buildings meet standards that were not in place when they were built, awareness and education campaigns, and built-in procedures and policies in place that a regular California resident doesn't need to let the fear of an earthquake take over their life.

California is as prepared as any state can be for an earthquake and it is constantly looking for better ways to be prepared.

[+] eof|6 years ago|reply
I think the lack of damage from this shows a high degree of preparation. This same earthquake 50 years ago would have likely been much worse.
[+] appleshore|6 years ago|reply
I didn’t feel it in West LA but my cat became extremely spooked. He was in an ultra hunting mode, flat to the ground and scanning the room. I never seen him act like this especially for this duration. He wouldn’t eat treats or respond to anything.

I wonder if it was just the vibration of the ground or if there’s some other factor alerting him.

[+] tzs|6 years ago|reply
Cats can probably feel or hear the p waves, which humans usually do not notice, and which travel faster than the more noticeable (to humans) s waves.

Here's a video of a bunch of cats in a cat cafe in Japan whose sleep is interrupted by an earthquake. They all wake up and start looking around about 9 seconds before the shaking starts, probably due to sensing the p wave. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ-p9qOhBv4

[+] kenhwang|6 years ago|reply
I felt it pretty clearly in West LA. My dog decided to roll onto her back to get a massage out of the earthquake.
[+] dawhizkid|6 years ago|reply
I'm pretty sure much of SF (marina, south beach, mid soma) are partially built on landfills are considered "liquification zones" by the city.
[+] TremendousJudge|6 years ago|reply
It sounds like a big quake could solve the housing issues
[+] dmckeon|6 years ago|reply
Luckily, this was far from population centers - epicenter about 10 miles from Ridgecrest, a town of 30,000 people just south of Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, and just east of US 395, about 80 miles east of Bakersfield.

Informative USGS links include:

https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci38443183...

Select "View Neaby Seismicity" to see the 47+ recent quakes in this area.

[+] classichasclass|6 years ago|reply
It was pretty close to Trona. Having driven through Trona, life sucks in Trona and today it sucked a lot worse.

Lots of shaking here in the greater LA foothills, but no damage (though this house does have earthquake insurance).

[+] tepper43|6 years ago|reply
6.4 magnitude it is a lot. I hope there are no injured
[+] markus_zhang|6 years ago|reply
Hope everyone is fine. Is it actually a good thing? I mean at least the prob of larger quake declines with it.
[+] notatoad|6 years ago|reply
>Gallegos said that the dried chiles hanging from a hook on her kitchen wall were all shaking. "It was surreal."

was this really the best anecdote they could find to include in the story?

[+] squarefoot|6 years ago|reply
I don't know, but anyway... If you happen to be under dried chiles when they shake, be sure to keep your eyes closed because the pain could make an earthquake much more pleasant. Been there done that, and that pain lasted hours... ouch!

On a more serious note, the anecdote might suggest that the earthquake produced very high frequency oscillations. Dried plants are relatively light and stiff so that a larger but slow displacement might be harder to spot by looking at them, but they could be much better at transmitting fast oscillations.

[+] reaperducer|6 years ago|reply
It happened 30 minutes before. I doubt the reporter had time to survey every person in a lesser-populated 500 square mile area.
[+] Gibbon1|6 years ago|reply
In the Loma Prieta earthquake Santa Cruz and Watsonville were badly damaged. But their was very little information getting out. So a lot of the coverage was San Francisco and Oakland. There is an inverse correlation between how bad a disaster is and a reporters ability to get any information.
[+] peter303|6 years ago|reply
The new early warning system did not trigger in L.A. Authorities said the projected damages wasnt big enough. The warning system is supposed to give seconds to tens of seconds of warning to turn off equipment and seek cover.
[+] Rebelgecko|6 years ago|reply
Not the submitter's fault, but I'm pretty sure the title is inaccurate
[+] enjoyyourlife|6 years ago|reply
It's not. The last earthquake with a higher magnitude in California occurred in 2010. The title is just phrased wrong.
[+] bitmadness|6 years ago|reply
Woke me up this morning, pretty wild