Posted on 02/08/2005 8:21:37 PM PST by al baby
TIME February 9, 1971 / 6:01 am PST LOCATION 34° 24.67' N, 118° 24.04' W MAGNITUDE MW6.6 DEPTH: 8.4 km TYPE OF FAULTING thrust - ANIMATION FAULT INVOLVED San Fernando fault zone; minor offset reported on the eastern Santa Susana fault zone
Also known as the Sylmar Earthquake, this earthquake occurred on the San Fernando fault zone, a zone of thrust faulting which broke the surface in the Sylmar-San Fernando Area. The total surface rupture was roughly 19 km (12 miles) long. The maximum slip was up to 2 meters (6 feet).
The earthquake caused over $500 million in property damage and 65 deaths. Most of the deaths occurred when the Veteran's Administration Hospital collapsed. Several other hospitals, including the Olive View Community Hospital in Sylmar (pictured below) suffered severe damage. Newly constructured freeway overpasses also collapsed, in damage scenes similar to those which occurred 23 years later in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake. Loss of life could have been much greater had the earthquake struck at a busier time of day.
I was in the US Naval Training Center in San Diego. We hardly noticed the quake. It was only slight at that distance.
CONGRATS ON QUITTING!!
Been three years for me- and it does get better.
Good Luck and God Bless...
As a 50+ year native Californian I had been through many quakes - usually the reponse was: Yahoo! Rock and roll! The Loma Prieta shaker was the first time I ever got down under a robust table to ride it out on hands and knees. I was at work (Sunnyvale) and ceiling tiles were falling, along with years of dust. Evacuated and got outside in time for the first major aftershock and can remember looking down the street and seeing the shockwaves rippling down the pavement at me, with trees and telephone poles swaying in unison.
Northbound Auto Interstate 5/Golden State Freeway passing through the Sylmar interchange, Junction Interstate 5/California 14. This interchange suffered in the 1971 Sylmar earthquake and again in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. In the latter quake, a California Highway Patrol (CHP) motorcycle officer was on a transition flyover ramp, and the ramp collapsed before he had time to stop. Sadly, he perished when he fell off the ramp. Photo taken 11/28/02.
what is your birthday?
presidio9 (since 10/22/70)
I was in bed, upstairs. My bed moved back and forth, the books all fell out of my closet....I remember being scared to death...my first childhood earthquake, having moved there from New York. It sounded like a train was coming down the tracks to smash straight into our house. It seemed like it went on forever and I was quite surprised how short the duration actually was.
I was 21 and stationed at Alameda Naval Air Station in Oakland.
I just turned 33. I wasn't even that far yet.
Tampa, Florida. Young, single, and chasing women. Or were they chasing me… I forget.
Nowhere near there!
But was about a dozen miles from the epicenter of the 1989 quake. Whole lot o' shakin' goin' on then!
I lived in Culver City at the time and it shook like nobody's buisness 6a.m! My folks freaked out and I said Hey maybe no school today!
there = Rowland Heights, CA (about 30 miles east of LA)
Yep, I remembered the time too...what a way to wake up!
I was 38 years old and far from the epicenter, on the east plains of New Mexico.
WOW i was 11 and honestly i couldn't tell you what i was doing other than just being a kid ......something most kids in these times don't get a chance to do !
No I wasn't, I was in Orange. (The memory is the second thing to go)...
I was 11 and on a farm on south Georgia ...
I was in Rowland Heights....I didn't know you lived in California, nully!
If I recall correctly, an aftershock hit during the filming of the Tonight Show, and Johnny Carson was cool and reassuring to the studio audience.
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