RIDGECREST, Calif. -- Officials in Southern California expressed relief Saturday that damage and injuries weren't worse after the largest earthquake the region has seen in nearly 20 years while voicing concerns about the possibility of major aftershocks in the days and even months to come.
No fatalities or major injuries were reported after Friday night's 7.1-magnitude earthquake, which jolted an area from Sacramento to Mexico and prompted the evacuation of the Navy's largest single landholding, Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in the Mojave Desert.
The quake, which had previously been reported as magnitude-6.9, struck at 8:19 p.m. Pacific time Friday and was centered 11 miles from Ridgecrest, the same area of the desert where a 6.4-magnitude temblor hit just a day earlier. That quake left behind cracked and burning buildings, broken roads, obstructed railroad tracks and leaking water and gas lines.
The light damage was largely because of the remoteness of the area where the temblor occurred, but Gov. Gavin Newsom cautioned after touring Ridgecrest that "it's deceiving, earthquake damage. You don't notice it at first."
He estimated there was more than $100 million in damage and said President Donald Trump called him to offer federal support in the rebuilding effort.
"He's committed in the long haul, the long run, to help support the rebuilding efforts," Newsom said of Trump.
Only 28,000 people live in the Ridgecrest area, which sits between more populated areas of Southern California and Las Vegas' Clark County. But seismologists warned that the area could face up to 30,000 aftershocks over the next six months.
April Hamlin said she was "already on edge" when the second quake rattled her Ridgecrest home. She and her three kids initially thought it was another aftershock.
"But it just kept on intensifying," she said. "The TV went over, hanging by the cord. We heard it break. We heard glass breakage in the other rooms, but all we could do was stay where we were until it stopped."
With the possibility of aftershocks and temperatures forecast to reach 100 degrees over the next several days, officials were taking precautions.
The California National Guard was sending 200 troops, logistical support and aircraft, said Maj. Gen. David Baldwin. The Pentagon had been notified, and the entire California Military Department was put on alert, he said.
Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake said in a Facebook post that nonessential workers were evacuated and operations halted. The epicenters of both quakes were on the base, and officials said they are continuing to assess damage.
The California emergency services agency delivered cots, water and meals and set up cooling centers in the region, Director Mark Ghilarducci said.
State highway officials shut down a 30-mile section of California 178 between Ridgecrest and the town of Trona southwest of Death Valley after a rock slide and severe cracking. The move left Trona temporarily cut off .
In Ridgecrest, fire and police officials said they were initially swamped by calls for medical and ambulance service. But Police Chief Jed McLaughlin said there was "nothing but minor injuries such as cuts and bruises, by the grace of God."
Two building fires were quickly doused, McLaughlin said, and natural-gas lines where leaks were reported were shut off.
In Trona, a town of about 2,000 people considered the gateway to Death Valley, fire officials said up to 50 structures were damaged. San Bernardino County Supervisor Robert Lovingood said the Federal Emergency Management Agency delivered a tractor-trailer full of bottled water because of damage to waterlines. Newsom declared a state of emergency for the county.
Julia Doss, who maintains the Trona Neighborhood Watch page on Facebook, said the only food store in town is a Family Dollar that was shuttered Saturday.
"The only way to get food is to drive to Ridgecrest, and with only three gas stations in town I'm worried we may soon run out of fuel," Doss said.
Antoun Abdullatif, 59, owns liquor stores and other businesses in Ridgecrest and Trona.
"I would say 70% of my inventory is on the floor, broken," he said. "Every time you sweep and you put stuff in the dust bin, you're putting $200 in the trash."
But he had stopped cleaning up, believing another earthquake is on the way.
Lucy Jones, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology and a former science adviser at the U.S. Geological Survey, said the new quake probably ruptured along about 25 miles of fault line and was part of a continuing sequence. The seismic activity is unlikely to affect fault lines outside the area, Jones said, noting that the San Andreas Fault is far away.
Egill Hauksson, another Caltech seismologist, said later in the day that scientists believe the sequence could produce more than 30,000 quakes of magnitude-1 or greater over six months. He said the probability of a magnitude-7 over the next week is about 3%, but one or two magnitude-6 quakes are expected.
Information for this article was contributed by Julie Carr Smyth, Brady McCombs, Juliet Williams, Adam Beam, Stefanie Dazio, Robert Jablon, Tarek Hamada, and Jolene Latimer of The Associated Press.
A Section on 07/07/2019