North-Trending fracture pattern near the Sylmar Converter Station above the upon Van Norman Dam. And the destruction spread, almost like the ring on a pond after the rock’s initial splash.” Some destruction was reported throughout the Newhall and Saugus areas, 10 miles west of the quake’s epicenter. “The cities of San Fernando and Sylmar were left in shambles. The latter newspaper printed an article that captured the quake’s desolation in a paragraph. “Quake Cost in Death, Damages Staggering,” the Valley News and Valley Green Sheet declared on Feb 11. “A Major Disaster,” the New York Times printed on Feb 10, 1971. "NEHRP was founded on the belief that while earthquakes are inevitable, there is much that we can do as a nation to improve public safety, reduce losses and impacts and increase our resilience to earthquakes and related hazards,“ Gavin Hayes, the USGS senior science advisor for Earthquake and Geologic Hazards, said.Īn earthquake large enough to spur legislative action and help form new federal programs garnered much media attention. In 2013, San Francisco enacted the Mandatory Soft Story Retrofit Program, which was based in part on work sponsored by NEHRP and on the aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Geological Survey, made research and policy recommendations that in part contributed to the City of Los Angeles enacting an ordinance in 2015 to retrofit weaker first-story wood-frame buildings and non-ductile, or brittle, concrete buildings, which are both more vulnerable to collapse during strong shaking. Over the years, NEHRP agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Congress eventually passed the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act of 1977, which led to the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, or NEHRP, and was pivotal in helping establish what is now the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program. On the federal level, Congress renewed its interest in earthquake safety, held hearings and introduced new bills to establish a national earthquake research program. It prompted Governor Ronald Reagan to declare Los Angeles County a disaster area and President Richard Nixon to send Vice President Spiro Agnew to inspect the area.Īfter the San Fernando earthquake, the State of California enacted the Alquist Priolo Act to limit construction along faults that likely caused earthquakes able to rupture the ground surface in the last 11,000 years. It led to 64 deaths and more than $500 million in damage. The 1971 San Fernando, or Sylmar, earthquake was the worst to hit an urban area of California since the 1933 magnitude-6.4 Long Beach quake. Approximately 80,000 people did evacuate as officials lowered the water levels in the dam. “As wind-whipped waves chewed at the damaged lip of the 1,100-foot Van Norman Dam, police spread through a nine-square-mile area between the reservoir and the Ventura Freeway, warning residents to evacuate,” The Los Angeles Times reported on February 10, 1971. The Lower Van Norman Dam, which sat above the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, had nearly collapsed in the wake of the quake. “It was hard to believe what I saw,” he said. After checking on his wife and child, he drove to the top of the dam to examine the damage. A magnitude-6.6 earthquake was shaking his home nestled at the bottom of the dam. On the Kenai Peninsula, a steady stream of cars were seen evacuating the Homer Spit, a jut of land extending nearly 5 miles (8 kilometers) into Kachemak Bay that is a draw for tourists and fishermen.At 6 o’clock in the morning on February 9, 1971, the reservoir keeper of the Lower Van Norman Dam in Southern California tried to get out of bed. The pantry is empty all over the floor, the fridge is empty all over the floor.” “It went on for a long time and there were several aftershocks, too. “It started to go and just didn’t stop,” Mayer told the Anchorage Daily News. Patrick Mayer, the superintendent of schools for the Aleutians East Borough, was sitting in his kitchen in the community of Sand Point when shaking from the quake started. The quake was about 29 miles (46 kilometers) below the surface of the ocean, according to USGS. Geological Survey said the quake was magnitude 8.2 and hit 56 miles (91 kilometers) east southeast of Perryville, Alaska at about 8:15 p.m. The warning for Alaska covered nearly a 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) stretch from Prince William Sound to Samalga Island, Alaska, near the end of the Aleutian Islands. A tsunami warning that had also been issued for Hawaii was also canceled, and officials said there was no threat to Guam, American Samoa or the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands. The National Tsunami Warning Center canceled the warnings early Thursday when the biggest wave, of just over a half foot, was recorded in Old Harbor.
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