RIO DELL, Calif. — A powerful earthquake rocked the Northern California coast early Tuesday, jolting residents awake as it shattered glass, shook homes off foundations, damaged roads and left nearly 60,000 homes and businesses in the rural area without power and many without water. At least 12 people were injured.
“It felt like my roof was coming down,” Cassondra Stoner said. “The only thing I could think about was, ‘Get the freaking kids.’”
When the ground stopped moving, Stoner’s family was fine — a daughter even slept through the racket. But when she showed up to work at Dollar General, she found tiles had fallen from the ceiling, shelves were toppled and the contents of the discount store she manages were scattered on the floor.
The magnitude 6.4 earthquake occurred at 2:34 a.m. near Ferndale, a small community about 210 miles northwest of San Francisco and close to the Pacific coast. The epicenter was just offshore at a depth of about 10 miles. Numerous aftershocks followed.
Residents in the area known for its redwood forests, scenic mountains and the three county Emerald Triangle’s legendary marijuana crop are accustomed to earthquakes. But many said this was more violent and unnerving than the usual rolling motion they experience.
“You could see the floor and walls shaking,” said Araceli Huerta, who was still rattled some 10 hours later. “It sounded like a freight train was going through my house.”
Damage to buildings and infrastructure was still being assessed. Two Humboldt County hospitals lost power and were running on generators, but the scale of the damage appeared to be minimal compared to the strength of the quake, according to Brian Ferguson, a spokesperson for the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed a state of emergency for Humboldt County on Tuesday evening.
Approximately 12 people were reported as suffering injuries, including a broken hip and head wound, the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office said at a news conference interrupted by a jarring aftershock. Two people died — an 83-year-old and a 72-year-old — because they couldn’t get timely care for “medical emergencies” during or just after the quake.
Damage was mostly focused on the small communities of Rio Dell, Ferndale and Fortuna, Emergency Services Director Mark Ghilarducci said during a news conference in Sacramento.
The earthquake occurred in an area known as the Mendocino Triple Junction, where three tectonic plates meet.
“We’re in this moment of geologic time where the most exciting, dynamic area of California happens to be Humboldt County and the adjacent offshore area,” said Lori Dengler, professor emeritus of geology at Cal Poly Humboldt.
The quake triggered a massive response by the West Coast’s warning system that detects the start of a quake and sends alerts to cellphones in the affected region that can give people notice to take safety precautions in the seconds before strong shaking reaches them.
The system pushed out alerts to some 3 million people in Northern California early Tuesday, officials said.
The earthquake came just days after a small magnitude 3.6 earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay Area, waking up thousands of people before 4 a.m. Saturday and causing minor damage.