Earthquake
The 1994 Greenfield earthquake was a moment magnitude 7.5 (Mw), blind thrust earthquake that occurred on January 17, 1994, at 4:30:55 a.m. PST from the coast of Greenfield all the way to the San Fernando Valley region of the City of Los Angeles. The quake had a duration of approximately 30-40 seconds, Shaking was felt as far away as San Diego, Turlock, Las Vegas, Richfield, and Phoenix.
Two aftershocks followed, the first about one minute after the initial event and the second approximately 11 hours later.
Epicenter
The earthquake struck in the Greenfield Bay Area about 95 miles (152 km) Southwest of downtown Los Angeles. While the epicenter struck in Greenfield, cities in the san fernando valley, like northridge also suffered major damages.
The earthquake
It was a windy morning in the Greenfield bay area. Residents woke up to get ready for work, while residents working the night shifts returned home from a nights work. At 4:30 AM. PST a large roar filled the city, followed by heavy shaking that lasted approximately 30-40 seconds. Damage occurred up to 95 miles away, with the most damage in the Greenfield Bay area, and the San Fernando Valley. The area most affected by the earthquake were the neighbourhoods of Ashfield, Northpark, Clinton and other central areas like Glenview. Many older apartment buildings suffered major damages, and even collapsed, most famously the Carrien, which stood at 8 floors tall in Downtown Ashfield. Unfortunately the city saw major losses, The highway leading up to the bridge from greenfield to ashfield partly collapsed onto the brand new marina under it, An old historic warehouse on one of the piers completely collapsed, and so did 9 other buildings, the tallest finished structure was the 12 storey tall apartment building right nexto the bridge connecting downtown greenfield and ashfield. Many buildings in ashfield were badly damaged, and had to either be repaired or torn down.
Northpark, clinton, springfield and western ashfield were mainly filled with large warehouses and factories. During the first earthquake many of these were not up-to-date and collapsed A large crane that wasnt bolted correctly fell onto the nearby interstate I-15, blocking the road for the duration of the week
Other districts around the epicenter include glenview, westwood and downtown greenfield.
Glenview was hit hard during the earthquake, many of the original brick buildings, lining the main streets collapsed. And so did many other homes and apartment buildings in the area. 31 buildings collapsed, the houses on the waterfront were closed off by the freeway collapsing, and lost power instantly.
Around 43 buildings collapsed in and around westwood, this area was a working class neighbourhood, so many of the buildings werent up to standard and collapsed, this includes the Westwood Community Center which, during the earthquake, collapsed. One of the iconic bridges going over the river was badly damaged, and so were other peices of infrastructure in the area. Around 20 buildings collapsed.
4 buildings collapsed in Downtown Greenfield, and another 5 in Chinatown. Many of the interstates were blocked by debris, and many building were in really bad shape.One of the bridges overpassing the interstate INTERSTATE NAME HERE, and a couple other parts of infrastructure collapsed in the financial core.
Minutes after the quake
Chaos ensued in the minutes after. The power grid went down in eastern Greenfield, with neighbourhoods like los llanos being without power for 2 days after. A train derailed near Ramona and crashed into the neighbouring canal. water and gas lines broke all over the cities, many streets were flooded and homes got set on fire.
A minute after the original quake another magnitude 6.3 aftershock struck, the aftershock had a duration of about 10-20 seconds. the areas that still had power didnt anymore and the bay was filled with darkness.
With no police around, and infrastructure blocked people started looting neighbourhood stores or helped others get out of their homes.
GIA was chaos with many late night travelers hurrying out of the emergency exits into the airport or streets. A boeing 747 Golden Pacific flight 007 ran off of the taxiway into a nearby ditch, other planes were stopped on the taxiways. Flights going towards GIA were rerouted to the nearby LAX and SFO airports.
The roof of the eastern terminal 1 wing partly collapsed and an oil truck exploded at the cargo terminal, after what witnesses claimed, a beam fell onto the truck. A part of the highway leading into the passenger terminals partly collapsed onto the road beneath crushing the people running out of the airport below.
Unfortunately during the aftershock, the 31 story "Bank of Despair Tower" in downtown Greenfield collapsed in on itselves. The building was built in 1971 and was one of the tallest building in the city. It was located on the end of the elevated section of downtown, right nexto the bridge connecting central ashfield and downtown, the building had a beautiful view of the city, and the mountains behind.
It collapsed due to a construction error. During the original quake the building stood, but had major destruction in the lobby and parking garage. One of the support beams for the western end of the tower was badly damaged, and collapsed during the aftershock, the northwest corner of the building collapsed, taking the rest of the building with it. The building fell onto the bridge and a few warehouses that stood beside the bridge.
This changed the skyline of the city forever, and many memorialize the building each year on january 17th.
Multiple peices of the highway bridge nexto glenview had collapsed, so did one of the smaller bridges going into ashfield. With almost no way in or out of Glenview the place became a chaotic nightmare. With no lights or police people started looting the stores and homes. A fire started in one of the old 1920s brick buildings and with the heavy winds on the day the fire spread quickly onto nearby homes and apartment buildings. Only 3 firefighters were on duty in the Glenview Fire Department. They tried to help people stuck in and under collapsed buildings, and with many helpful citizens tried to stop the fire to spread, even though the efforts the fire still continued for another 7 hours.
Members of the First-Aid group set up camp on the santa cabeza plaza infront of the library.
The Glenview waterfront was blocked off from the rest of the city, due to the interstate collapsing onto every road into Glenview. The residents of the area came together and set up a first aid camp on the waterfront park, they also made a temporary living setup for residents with houses in bad shape, or without them.
Ashfield central was flooded due to multiple sewerpipes bursting. Many residents evacuated the tall buildings and were brought to the ashfield waterfront by the Ashfield police. The police couldnt reach other areas due to flooding and collapsed infrastructure, so they helped rescue victims of collapsed buildings, and keep ashfield as safe as possible.