re: HUGE M6.4 Earthquake & AFTER Quakes HIT California 4/5 July 2019
UPDATE:
A 6.4 earthquake has shaken Southern California on this Fourth of July holiday. It was initially described as 6.6 magnitude, but was revised down.
It was reported at 10:33 a.m. southwest of Searles Valley in San Bernardino County at a depth of 8.7 kilometers.
Searles Valley is a remote desert area north of Barstow and about 25 miles northeast of Ridgecrest.
Kern County Fire Department officials said on Twitter the agency is out at nearly 24 incidents around and near Ridgecrest, including calls for medical assistance and structure fires.
San Bernardino County Fire Department said in a tweet that in its assessment of its northwest communities, crews have seen broken water mains, power lines that have fallen and some roads have rock slides. It has also seen multiple buildings with minor cracks.
Amanda Callaway, 36, from Ridgecrest, was driving in the northside of the city during the quake. She pulled over her car, thinking a tire might have popped off.
“We got out and we can actively see the road undulating. It’s intense. I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said. “We can see the road shaking. It was a trip.”
She didn’t see any damage to the road, although a traffic light had gone out. There was some smoke southward of where she was, she said.
Thankfully, everything was fine for her, she said. She went home and found a bottle of wine had fallen off of a shelf. Her dog was also frightened, she said.
In a live news conference, seismologist Lucy Jones said there have been several aftershocks already and to expect more.
“We should be expecting lots of aftershocks, some of them will be bigger than the 3s we’ve been feeling now,” she said. She said something in the 5s was certainly a possibility.
She also said, “This earthquake was large enough the shaking could have caused damage” out in the desert region. She said she wouldn’t expect damage in the LA area.
Social media reports showed that shaking was felt to the south at the National Weather Service’s San Diego office and as far east as Desert Hot Springs.
“I felt it” reports have also been posted from North Las Vegas, Woodland Hills, Palmdale, La Puente, Santa Maria, Santa Ana, Visalia, Hanford, Lemoore, Porterville and Covina.
Jones said the early warning system worked, alerting people in the Los Angeles area about 48 seconds before the shaking started.
Jones tweeted at 10:40 a.m. that an earlier magnitude 4.2 temblor in the same area was a foreshock.
There have been a series of smaller earthquakes recorded since the 6.4 quake. They have mainly been in the 3s range.
Metrolink spokesman Scott Johnson said all trains in operation were stopped after the quake for about 12 minutes. But after the epicenter of the quake was located, all trains resumed service as the epicenter was beyond 70 miles off any Metrolink tracks, he said.
San Bernardino County Fire Department said there are broken water mains, power lines that have fallen and some roads have rock slides. It has also seen multiple buildings with minor cracks.
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