San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
7.1 quake cleanup starts — Newsom seeks federal aid
As Mojave Desert residents swept up the mess Saturday after two powerful earthquakes in two days, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he expects to receive federal assistance, despite his political differences with President Trump.
Fires, broken glass, power failures and frayed nerves were reported in the Kern County town of Ridgecrest, near the epicenter of the 7.1magnitude quake that hit Friday night and a 6.4magnitude quake that occurred Thursday. Newsom outlined the damage to Kern and San Bernardino counties in a letter addressed to the president Saturday, pointing to “significant damage to critical infrastructure,” and said federal assistance is “necessary to save lives and to protect property, public health and safety.”
The governor said later Saturday that Trump had called him and promised federal help.
“There’s no question we don’t agree on everything, but one area where there’s no politics, where we work extremely well together, is our response to emergencies,” Newsom said.
No deaths or serious injuries were reported, although Kern County Fire Chief David Witt said there have been “a lot of ambulance calls for help.”
“Yeah, definitely it was scary,” Mindy Brown, a clerk at the Hampton Inn in Ridgecrest, said Saturday. She said floor tiles had broken, but otherwise the hotel appeared undamaged. At her home, plates and glasses crashed from kitchen cabinets onto the floor.
Boulders crashed onto the roadway, and cracks appeared on Highway 178 between Bakersfield and Lake Isabella, forcing its closure. Emergency workers hauled rocks and debris from the road in the Kern River Canyon area and reopened that stretch of the road early Saturday. Newsom, who had declared a state of emergency in Kern County after the first quake, expanded it Friday to include San Bernardino County.
“Conditions of extreme peril exist (and) local authority is inadequate to cope with the
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magnitude of the damage,” the governor’s declaration said.
Friday’s quake released roughly 10 times more energy than the 6.4magnitude temblor the day before, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
“The damage (of the 7.1 quake) will be substantial compared to when it was a 6.4 magnitude,” said Jana Pursley, a geophysicist with the USGS. “With earthquakes of this size, there will be damage and very likely injuries.”
Scores of aftershocks were recorded overnight into Saturday after Friday’s quake as emergency crews across the region conducted damage assessments. Aftershocks were expected to continue for days or even weeks.
By Saturday, there had been nearly 100 aftershocks — two of which were greater than 5.0 magnitude. Over the next week, the chance of another 7.0magnitude quake or higher striking is 3%, which is “possible but with a low probability,” USGS officials said.
Ridgecrest Regional Hospital was forced to close its emergency room and triage patients in the parking lot, where they were transported to nearby hospitals.
Shaking from the Friday night quake was felt all across Southern California, east to Las Vegas and as far north as San Jose.
The shaking was felt in Las Vegas, where an NBA summer league game was postponed due to the quake, and in Los Angeles, where skyscrapers shook for about 30 seconds. Steve Rubenstein and Lauren Hernández are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com, lauren.hernandez@sfchronicle. com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF, @LaurenPorFavor