I was in the 1971 and 1994 earthquakes.
The Northridge earthquake in January 17, 1994 was 6.7 on the Richter scale and killed 57 people, more than 8,700 were injured. The quake was felt 220 miles away in Las Vegas. Damage occurred up to 85 miles away.
Sixteen people died in one apartment complex. A couple of miles away, the second floor of my wife’s apartment came down on her. She lost everything.
The newly built concrete parking structures at our local mall and at California State University, Northridge collapsed.
Standing outside, I could see landslides with huge clouds of dust with the major aftershocks. This caused 203 cases of Valley fever caused by the inhalation of fungus spores. Three people died from it.
The Northridge Hospital received so much damage that it had to be torn down. They replaced it with a multi-story high school.
The freeway overpasses from the 5 to the 14 freeways are several hundred feet high, they collapsed, leaving stranded motorists on an island of concrete and had to be removed by helicopter. These are the same overpasses that fell in the 1971 quake, so, naturally, they just recently added another overpass that is even higher.
An earthquake is like ripples with the first wave being maybe 6 inches to 3 feet high going under your house from one side to the other. Something is going to break, most likely your concrete foundation, water lines and gas lines. The wood structures of homes can absorb most of this movement preventing collapse, but you may end up with swimming pools not being level or your foundation not being level.
After the 94 quake, people just walked away from their homes, especially condo owners. The condo owners were responsible for their entire complex even if their own condo received no damage.
The freeways were down and so we had to find alternate routes to work. Some of the overpasses were damaged and we weren’t allowed to drive under them. I told my teenage son to check on his grandparents. He said “what if the streets are torn up” I told him to go dirt womping. Hours later he told me that there was a huge explosion in the street and that it was on fire and houses on both sides were burning. There was a gas line rupture.
The February 9, 1971 earthquake was 6.6 on the Richter scale. There were 58 deaths with most of them occurring at the newly opened Olive View hospital complex that was earthquake proof with reinforced concrete, completed a year earlier in 1970.
There was another hospital under construction at Rinaldi St. and the 405 freeway that was so badly damaged it had to be torn down.
The Van Norman Dam was so damaged that 80,000 people were evacuated for 4 days. I was one of them. They eventually moved the dam.
There were over 1,000 landslides and methane gas was bubbling up from the ocean floor.
As kids, we walked up the fallen freeways and were amazed at how tangled and twisted the steel reinforced concrete was.
When the quake hit, my oak dresser flew across the room and landed just inches from me.
Neither of these quakes was on the San Andres fault line. You can see the line from the air. They used to use the Vasquez Rocks on the San Andres to shoot many old westerns. These were rocks that jutted up from a deep crevice. They don’t film there much anymore, too many houses were built there.
For the last 10 years I was a stay-at-home dad doing house plans. My wife had a great job with all the benefits.
During the housing boom, people were buying homes, remodeling them and selling them all without permits. Most of these people were illiterates from Mexico. In my immediate neighborhood there were 7 homes under construction at the same time, so I checked and only one had a permit. They were removing support walls and doing anything they wanted without any knowledge or supervision. These homes are going to fail and people are going to get hurt.
Some of the inspectors are corrupt. One 600 square foot house I did plans for added 3,400 square feet. The inspector told him to hurry up and finish the outside and he could do anything he wanted on the inside. The owner’s intent was to turn this neighborhood home into an apartment and daycare.
Just before getting the final approval, someone asked for updated engineering plans, the structural engineer, without knowing how the house was constructed or even being able to look at the framing because it was wrapped, provided a new set of plans and the owner received his final.
I visited the site many times and asked the laborers why the rafters didn’t look parallel. I was told that the owner wouldn’t let them use a tape measure because it took too much time.
On a side note, people are buying homes and finding out their square footage is illegal and they have to tear the illegal addition down.
Now our illustrious new mayor is going to follow in his predecessor’s footsteps and create high-rise apartments along his transportation corridor. Some of those high-rise apartments are going to go right up to where the 71 and 94 quakes were.
No, Los Angeles will not survive another major earthquake.
Where were the epicenters of those quakes?
I had a cousin who slept through it one mile from the epicenter, in a top bunk.
They were on a node for the standing waves bouncing back and forth through the valley.
My best friend (I miss you Stephi!) embalmed most of those 57 victims. It was bad.
I have a friend who was living in LA with her husband and children at the time. Their house was damaged, but they managed to escape without injury. She said they awoke to darkness, and didn’t realize at first what was happening.