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Tag: california earthquake
Obama Issues Disaster Declaration For Napa Quake

Obama Issues Disaster Declaration For Napa Quake

By Adolfo Flores, Los Angeles Times

President Barack Obama declared California a major disaster site Thursday, unlocking federal funds for recovery efforts in the areas affected by the 6.0-magnitude earthquake near Napa last month.

The Aug. 24 quake resulted in one fatality and more than 280 injuries, devastated more than 100 wineries, and damaged at least 1,000 buildings, many of which were historic properties.

The declaration comes after an official request from Gov. Jerry Brown last week.

According to Brown, the California Department of Insurance estimated that fewer than 5 percent of businesses and homeowners in Napa, Solano, and Sonoma counties have earthquake insurance.

Federal aid would cover areas affected by an earthquake from Aug. 24 to Sept. 7, the White House said in a statement.

Even though the earthquake occurred on Aug. 24, the region sustained additional damage from aftershocks, said Veronica Verde, spokeswoman with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The funds are available to state, tribal, and eligible local governments, as well as certain private nonprofit organizations, to help pay for emergency work and to repair or replace facilities damaged by the earthquake.

Federal funding is also available to supplement hazard mitigation measures statewide.

FEMA said that damage surveys are continuing in other areas. More counties and additional forms of assistance may be designated after the assessments are completed.

AFP Photo/Josh Edelson

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Scores Of Aftershocks From Napa Earthquake Felt, More On The Way

Scores Of Aftershocks From Napa Earthquake Felt, More On The Way

By Hector Becerra and Veronica Rocha, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — There have been scores of aftershocks from Sunday’s 6.0 earthquake in Napa County, and experts said the small quakes will continue for days.

In general, the likelihood of big aftershocks goes down with time, as does the chance of a larger quake.

Officials have warned the public to be careful around damaged buildings because even a small aftershock could knock debris loose.

At least 65 aftershocks have rattled Napa and its surrounding areas since the destructive 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck early Sunday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Two of the 65 aftershocks were magnitude 3.0 or higher, said Susan Garcia of the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program in Menlo Park, Calif. The largest, a 3.6-magnitude aftershock, occurred around 5:47 a.m. Sunday, she said.

Sunday’s quake occurred on the West Napa fault. It’s about 20 miles, much shorter than the better-known Hayward and Rodgers Creek faults, which are capable of a 7.2-magnitude quake. Still, it produced the largest earthquake in the Bay Area since the deadly 6.9 Loma Prieta quake in 1989.

The shaking was dwarfed in magnitude and sheer destruction by much larger earthquakes, such as the 1989 quake, as well as the 1971 and 1994 temblors in the San Fernando Valley.

But considering that Sunday’s earthquake ran less than half the length of the fault, scientists said the temblor could have been worse.

“This is one of the smaller of the sets of faults in the East Bay, but it’s still obviously large enough to create a magnitude-6 quake, and it didn’t rupture the length of the whole fault,” said Jeane Hardebeck, a seismologist for the USGS, also in Menlo Park. “If it had, you could imagine a much larger earthquake.”

Like a lot of faults, she said, it runs parallel to the roughly 800-mile-long San Andreas fault. Sunday’s quake happened just south of Napa and ran north along the fault, which runs on the western side of the Napa Valley, Hardebeck said.

The last time Napa was shaken hard by a destructive earthquake was Sept. 3, 2000, when a 5.2-magnitude quake struck the area.

On Monday, power had been restored to nearly all of the approximately 70,000 customers in Napa County whose lights went out after the earthquake struck early Sunday, utility officials said Monday.

The approximately 150 customers who remained without power were expected to have their service restored later Monday morning, according to Pacific Gas & Electric officials.

AFP Photo/Josh Edelson

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Napa Earthquake: Power Restored To Thousands; Cleanup Continues

Napa Earthquake: Power Restored To Thousands; Cleanup Continues

Los Angeles Times

Power has been restored to nearly all of the approximately 70,000 customers in Napa County whose lights went out after a magnitude 6.0 earthquake struck early Sunday, utility officials said Monday.

The approximately 150 customers who remained without power were expected to have their service restored later Monday morning, according to Pacific Gas & Electric officials.

The quake — centered about nine miles south of the city of Napa — struck at 3:20 a.m. and damaged buildings, cut off power to tens of thousands, sparked fires, broke water mains, caused gas leaks, sent more than 120 people to a hospital, and led Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency.

As of early Monday, there were 20 earthquake-related gas-distribution outages, PG&E said. The utility said crews were also in the process of responding to “several hundred” gas-odor calls.

Meanwhile, officials said 90 to 100 homes in the area have been red-tagged — that is, labeled unfit to enter — as a result of the quake, and a severed gas line was being blamed for a fire that destroyed six mobile homes.

Thirty-three buildings in the city of Napa proper were red-tagged as of 5 p.m. Sunday, and numerous others were yellow-tagged, which means people were being granted only limited access.

Of Napa’s 60 water-main breaks, 20 had been isolated as of midday Sunday, but it “may take a full week to get everything restored,” Jack LaRochelle, the city’s director of public works, told reporters.

The earthquake was the largest to strike the Bay Area since the 6.9 Loma Prieta temblor of 1989, the U.S. Geological Survey said, and it lasted 10 to 20 seconds, depending on location.

Napa bore the brunt of the quake’s destruction, as did the downtown area of nearby Vallejo.

Jennifer Patefield, 47, who runs the Mariposa Ice Creamery store in Napa, said she was “jolted” awake and counted to 40 before the motion from the quake stopped. Her refrigerator emptied its contents and the china cabinet was “gone,” Patefield said.

“I surf, and it was like riding a big wave,” Patefield said as she assessed the damage to her home.

Tourists were out in force, some of them startled.

“We just have snowstorms where we come from,” said Cheryllyn Tallman, 56, of New Hartford, N.Y. She and her husband were in the area for the scheduled GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma race. She said her husband was sound asleep when the quake hit.

“For a man who never uses inappropriate language, I heard some colorful words come out,” said Tallman, who added that she took a tip from what she’d seen on TV and headed for a doorway when the shaking began.
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Staff writers Lee Romney and Christine Mai-Duc reported from Napa, and Ryan Parker and Lauren Raab from Los Angeles. Staff writers Evan Wagstaff, Maura Dolan, Paige St. John, and Marisa Gerber in Napa and Rong-Gong Lin II, Hector Becerra, Laura J. Nelson, Cindy Chang, and Amina Kahn in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

AFP Photo/Josh Edelson

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