Humboldt County tallies earthquake damage as power outages persist

Thousands of residents across Humboldt County were still without power Wednesday morning more than 24 hours after a magnitude 6.4 earthquake rocked this region of Northern California, leaving two people dead, almost a dozen injured and countless displaced.

About 14,560 people were without electricity on Wednesday morning, a majority of whom are in Fortuna, Rio Dell and Ferndale, said Megan McFarland, spokesperson for Pacific Gas & Electric. That’s down from 71,000 following the quake, which struck just after 2:30 a.m. Tuesday just offshore about 7½ miles southwest of Ferndale, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

At least two people died because of medical emergencies related to the earthquake, according to the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office. The New York Times reported the victims were 72 and 83. Almost a dozen more were injured, including broken bones and head injuries, largely from furniture or appliances toppling over, officials said.

Ferndale, Fortuna and Rio Dell were among the hardest hit communities, Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said at a news conference Tuesday.

The Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday morning.

State officials applauded the ShakeAlert early warning system that they said broadcast an alert 10 seconds in advance of the earthquake’s shaking to the mobile phones of some 3 million people in Northern California, giving residents the opportunity to drop, cover and hold or get to a place of safety. “The system did operate as we had hoped, and that we’ve been working to design,” Ghilarducci said.

But residents of the region known as “earthquake country” were still rattled, particularly those along the quake’s fault, who almost uniformly described the event as the most violent and scary jolt they’ve experienced in decades. Pictures across social media and shared with The Times showed homes with walls and ceiling caved in, cabinets toppled over, shelves dismantled and broken glass, dishes and other items covering the floors.

Critical infrastructure, including water lines, gas lines and roads, were also damaged by the quake. Fernbridge, a historic Humboldt County landmark built across the Eel River in 1911 to connect Ferndale to U.S. 101 via State Route 211, was fractured in several places.

Tuesday’s earthquake was a “big one,” said Lucy Jones, a research associate at the seismological lab of Caltech and founder of the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society. But it’s not just an earthquake’s magnitude that determines the potential for damage: It’s also where people and towns are with respect to the quake’s fault, she said.

Though the epicenter — or the earthquake’s starting point — was just offshore, it ruptured along a fault onshore and traveled northeast. The aftershock distribution for Tuesday’s event measured about 12 miles, or 20 kilometers, which is the likely length of the fault, Jones said.

“That means you’ve got 20 kilometers’ worth of people potentially on top of [of the fault],” Jones said. She added that damage stems from a combination of how much shaking occurs and the strength of local and critical infrastructure.

Diana McIntosh, a Humboldt County resident for about 65 of her 69 years, said she knew immediately to duck for cover. McIntosh was asleep when she heard something crash in the front of her Eureka apartment, and then the lights went out. She started screaming with the covers over her.

“I’d never reacted like this to an earthquake before,” she said. “It’s been scary, but this one was really much louder and noisier.”

McIntosh said that a door to a hutch containing 1900s-era glassware broke off and her china was destroyed.

“I thought I was going to be able to pass that down to my daughter and grandchildren, but this being Humboldt County, you can’t always tell,” she said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Humboldt County, granting it state disaster resources, requesting federal assistance and easing access to unemployment benefits.

The State Operations Center was activated to coordinate the response with local and tribal governments, and provide any resources needed.

The governor has directed state agencies and departments to take “appropriate action as necessary” in order to support local communities, according to the statement.

Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal declared a local emergency, a move that allows the county to seek state and federal reimbursement for repairs and other costs, officials said.

The earthquake epicenter was two miles offshore, said Cindy Pridmore, a geologist with the California Geological Survey, and was on the Gorda plate, a complex area where several tectonic plates, including the Pacific plate, the North America plate and small pieces of other plates intersect. The area has registered over 40 earthquakes in the last 100 years that were magnitudes 6 to 7.