Experts hope the 5.4 quake will remind people to be prepared. A regionwide quake drill planned for November is already getting more attention.
By David Pierson and Evelyn LarrubiaLos Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 31, 2008
Southern California has been hit by more than 90 small aftershocks from the 5.4 Chino Hills earthquake, an event officials hope will increase awareness about the danger of a much larger temblor to come.
The 5.4 temblor Tuesday caused little damage, but it was the first quake of its size to hit a metropolitan part of California since the much larger and more destructive 1994 Northridge quake. Quake-safety advocates believe this lull in seismic activity in heavily populated area has made it harder for them to push new laws and quake building standards.
"Any time you don't have an earthquake for a long time, people's concerns go elsewhere," said Kate Hutton, a staff seismologist at Caltech. "There's nothing like a good shake to change their minds."
Hutton and her colleagues have determined that they usually have two days of a "teachable moment" to promote safety awareness.
"The attention will certainly go away," said Hutton, who caught four hours of sleep and was losing her voice from doing so many interviews since the temblor struck. "We can only hope to get a little shake once in a while to remind us."
Lucy Jones of the U.S. Geological Survey said there has already been a positive effect of the Chino Hills quake. She and other experts have struggled over the last few months to advertise a regional earthquake drill in November called the Great Southern California ShakeOut.
Cities and businesses are being asked to sign up and participate.
"We were getting 10 to 30 registrations a day," Jones said. "Yesterday, we got 400."
Jones said she was not surprised.
"A lot of people think we've solved the problem" of earthquake preparedness, she said. "It's easy not to think about the work we have to do."
Most of the aftershocks were tiny. But one measured 3.8.
So did the quake prompt residents to improve safety at their homes?
Angela Demoura, 41, crouched in the hardware isle at the Home Depot in Burbank today, searching for cabinet latches and furniture straps.
When the shaking started Tuesday, her 3 1/2 -year-old son, Jason, was standing in front of a teetering bookcase. She pulled him away from it, checked on her other three boys, then started making her list of earthquake supplies.
"I've been in my house four years," the Eagle Rock resident said. "Why haven't I done this before?"
"It's been a long time since '94, but that little tremor was enough for me," added the stay-at-home mother, who home-schools her four children. "I want to be prepared. I don't want to have to rely on neighbors."
Around Southern California, shaken residents were visiting home supply and earthquake preparedness shops in steady, if small, numbers.
There were no runs on flashlights at the Home Depot on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. SOS Survival Products in Van Nuys had as many news reporters as buyers in the store this morning.
But those who did come in were motivated by Tuesday's 5.4 temblor in Chino Hills, a not-so-gentle reminder that a catastrophic earthquake could strike at any time.
The quake struck hardest in an area of San Bernardino County that has seen massive growth in population and housing in the last decade. That meant that the buildings shaken the hardest were mostly built under California's strictest building codes, updated in 1997 in response to the 6.7 Northridge quake of 1994.
That kept damage to a minimum. Only minor injuries were reported, three at an outpatient medical clinic in Brea and five at a building in the Wilshire district of Los Angeles.
Although moderate in intensity, the quake rumbled up from a relatively shallow depth, making it feel sharper, stronger and scarier than its magnitude suggested, especially in areas close to the epicenter.
"It's the first time in my life I actually got under my desk," said Anaheim Police Sgt. Ken Seymour, a native Southern Californian. Robert Heded, 32, a Time Warner technician who lives in Culver City, was about 30 feet up a telephone pole at La Cienega and Pico boulevards in Los Angeles when the quake hit.
"I just sat there and waited, kinda rode it out," he said not long after Tuesday's quake as he bought an energy drink at a 7-Eleven, still dressed in his reflective safety vest. The lines were "swaying a lot more than usual, about four feet from side to side," he said. "I wasn't sure what was happening, if it was an earthquake or if it was me."
Heded said he finished up his work, still strapped to the pole in his safety gear. Then he made his way down.
"It was bad," said Nirmala Dawson, the director of the Montessori School of Chino. She said the school performs frequent earthquake drills. "But at that moment, to be honest, we forgot them. We just evacuated."
No one was injured, she said, but a few children were frightened by the shaking. Then, after the quake, phones began ringing off the hook with calls from parents. That nearly universal instinct to call loved ones -- or someone -- strained the capacity of the regional phone network, perhaps instructive for officials planning emergency responses to the next massive earthquake. Verizon lost some phone service Tuesday in several quake-affected areas.
"We have some outages on our land-line side," said Jonathan Davies, Verizon spokesman. "We're not sure yet if it's physical damage or just due to high call volumes."
AT&T's cellphone service was spotty in some areas. Sitting in a Starbucks in Pasadena, Paul Roberts was able to get calls on his cellphone.
"But I am sitting here with my buddy, who has AT&T, too, and he can't make outgoing calls," said Roberts, a student at Art Center College of Design.
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