Crews rush to make repairs

After the largest earthquake in Southern California in nearly 20 years, officials work to fix utilities, roads.

RIDGECREST, Calif. — Officials in two damaged desert communities worked Sunday to repair roads and restore utilities following the largest earthquake in Southern California in nearly two decades.

Ridgecrest and neighboring Trona were hit hard by the magnitude 7.1 quake that rocked the remote Mojave Desert towns Friday.

Roads in Ridgecrest were in good shape, electricity was back on and the water system was working, said Jed McLaughlin, chief of police for the town of 28,000. Buses planned to run again Monday.

But many in nearby Trona, a gateway for Death Valley, didn’t have water, and crews were still patching cracked roads in the town of fewer than 2,000 people.

Residents lined up for free water that National Guard soldiers handed out at Trona High School.

Friday’s quake sparked several house fires, shut off power, snapped gas lines, cracked buildings and flooded some homes when water lines broke. Officials were still reviewing the damage to buildings.

It came a day after a magnitude 6.4 temblor hit the same patch of the desert Thursday. Officials have voiced concerns about the possibility of major aftershocks in the days and even months to come, though the chances have dwindled.

No fatalities or major injuries were reported after the larger quake, which jolted an area from Sacramento to Mexico and prompted the evacuation of the Navy’s largest single landholding, Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. The jolt was centered 11 miles from Ridgecrest.