Earthquakes alert Californians to be ready for dreaded ‘Big One’

RIDGECREST, CALIF. — Shaken residents are cleaning up from two of the biggest earthquakes to rattle California in decades as scientists warn that both should serve as a wake-up call to be ready when the long-dreaded “Big One” strikes.

California is spending more than $16 million to install thousands of quake-detecting sensors statewide that officials say will give utilities and trains precious seconds to shut down before the shaking starts.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said it’s time residents did their part by mapping out emergency escape routes and preparing earthquake kits with food, water, lights and other necessities.

“It is a wake-up call for the rest of the state and other parts of the nation, frankly,” Newsom said at a weekend news conference on efforts to help a desert region jolted by back-to-back quakes.

A magnitude 6.4 earthquake Thursday and a magnitude 7.1 quake Friday were centred 18 kilometres from the small town of Ridgecrest, about 241 kilometres from Los Angeles.

The quakes buckled highways and ruptured gas lines that sparked several house fires, and officials said about 50 homes in the nearby small town of Trona were damaged.

Seismologists said a similarsized quake in a major city like San Francisco, Los Angeles or San Diego could collapse bridges, buildings and freeways, as well as spark devastating fires.

“We’re going to have a magnitude 6, on average, somewhere in southern California every few years. We’ve actually gone 20 years without one, so we have had the quietest 20 years in the history of southern California,” said seismologist Lucy Jones of the California Institute of Technology. “That’s unlikely to continue in the long run,” she added. “Geology keeps on moving ... and we should be expecting a higher rate. And when it happens near people, it is going to be a lot worse.”