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 11-12 hours later.
Epicenter
The earthquake struck in the Greenfield Bay Area about 95 miles (152 km) Southwest of downtown Los Angeles. While the quake's epicenter was within 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 8 floors tall in Downtown Ashfield. Unfortunately, the city saw major losses; the highway leading up to the bridge from Downtown 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 that was right next to 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 had mainly large warehouses and factories. During the first earthquake, many of these were not up-to-date and collapsed. A large crane that wasn't bolted correctly fell onto the nearby interstate I-15, blocking the road for the duration of the week while engineers hurried to remove it from the scene.
Other districts around the epicenter included 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. As this area was a working class neighbourhood, so many of the buildings weren't up to standard and collapsed. This included 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 pieces of infrastructure in the area. Roughly 20 buildings collapsed.
4 buildings collapsed in Downtown Greenfield, and another 5 in Chinatown. Many of the interstates were blocked by debris, and many buildings 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.
Around 10 buildings collapsed in Ramona, Dawson and the other areas surrounding downtown.
Santa Cecilia was partly disconnected due to a truck that crashed into one of the stores, blocking the main road, and the bay bridge being in bad shape. A few buildings collapsed in Santa Cecilia, but many of the beach houses were badly damaged and had to be rebuilt entirely.
Los Llanos, Palma and Rio Pueblo weren't hit as hard with in total only 7 houses collapsing, but with many being in bad shape. However, due to the emergency services focusing on the airport and downtown, looting was a big problem after the earthquake.
Rockwell had a lot of unstable beach houses, even before the earthquake; so, 18 buildings collapsed, with many that still stood being in bad shape. A parking structure of the Tropicana Palms hotel collapsed, and many roads were blocked by debris.
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 city, many streets were flooded and homes got set on fire.
A minute after the original quake, a magnitude 6.3 aftershock struck, which had a duration of about 10-20 seconds. The areas that still had power didn't anymore, and the bay area was devoid of light.
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 747-200 of Golden Pacific ran off of a taxiway into a nearby ditch. Meanwhile, the airport was ordered a ground stop by FAA. Flights going towards GIA were diverted 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 itself. The building was built in 1971 and was one of the tallest buildings in the city. It was located on the end of the elevated section of downtown, right next to the bridge connecting central Ashfield and downtown. The building had a beautiful view of the city as well as 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. During the initial aftershock, that support beam collapsed, causing the northwest corner of the building to collapse, 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 pieces of the highway bridge next to 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. People starting looting houses as there were no lights or police. A fire started in one of the old 1920s brick buildings and the fire spread quickly onto nearby homes and apartment buildings, attributed to high winds. Only 3 firefighters were on duty in the Glenview Fire Department. They attempted to help people stuck in and under collapsed buildings; despite best efforts made by other people, the fire continued for another 7 hours.
Members of the First-Aid group set up a camp on the Santa Cabeza plaza in front of the library.
The Glenview waterfront was blocked off from the rest of the city as an interstate leading into Glenview collapsed. 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 sewer pipes bursting. Many residents evacuated the tall buildings and were brought to the Ashfield waterfront by the Ashfield police. The police couldn't reach other areas due to flooding and collapsed infrastructure, so they helped rescue victims of collapsed buildings, and kept Ashfield as safe as possible. They set up a large temporary living camp on the grass field in the park, and police evacuated people to get them away from the buildings in case there was another aftershock.
Downtown was a mess, with collapsed infrastructure and heavily damaged buildings it was already very hard to navigate, but with all the toxic fumes and debris that came from the collapsed tower, it became even harder for the police to evacuate people to a save space. Everyone was forced to wear a mask so they wouldn't breath in as much of the toxic air. The citizens were evacuated to three spots in the city, the city hall, the downtown marina and the Santa Cecilia bay bridge.
A large fire started in Chinatown, burning down buildings before it was put out by the residents of the area.
Ramona, Dawson and other areas near downtown were neglected by emergency services and looters ran around the streets. The ground under one of the houses in Ramona collapsed onto the interstate next to it, locking one of the only still navigable interstates to downtown. While some streets in Ramona were flooding due to bursted sewer pipes, they still managed to set up a first aid camp on the parking lot of the Ramona plaza mall, a large stripmall. Residents came together to help others out of collapsed buildings, and put out fires.
Santa Cecilia was partly disconnected so they couldn't get as much help from Downtown emergency services as other areas. Luckily many residents voluntarily made a first aid camp on the beach, and helped others get out of badly damaged buildings.
Los Llanos, Palma and Rio Pueblo were all very badly hit by looters and fires raged in the areas due to emergency services focusing on the airport and downtown. A first aid camp was made near the convention center.
Rockwell was also a mess with many residents hurrying out of their houses onto the beach, with lots of rubble in and around the area. An emergency aid camp was set up by the Palma Police Department to house the victims of the earthquake.
The day after the earthquake.
A lot of infrastructure was either blocked, or collapsed, especially in and around downtown so a heavy gridlock was in effect. A lot of the main interstates were blocked off by emergency services, so people had to drive through city streets to get away. Santa Cecilia was one of the only places people could easily drive through, however with the mass of traffic going into the small side streets, Santa Cecilia ended up gridlocked as well, so did Ramona, Dawson, Los Llanos, Rio Pueblo, Ashfield, Glenview and Westwood. Many of these were pretty dangerous without power or police supervision. Emergency services started rescues all over the city and took over most of the makeshift first aid camps. Surrounding cities in California sent rescue operations to help with the damage, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, as well as multiple cities in the valley.
With flooded, blocked or collapsed infrastructure, gridlocked traffic and rescue operations going on all over the city the last thing they would want was another aftershock to start.
So at 3:59:19 p.m. PST the second aftershock, almost 12 hours after the first struck. A magnitude 6.8 aftershock that lasted for 11 seconds struck the city.
This second aftershock was almost another earthquake by itself. An 11 story 1910s building collapsed onto the road below, crushing multiple cars on the road below. Most of the interstates were blocked off and unstable, so when an off-ramp in Los Llanos collapsed onto the highway below, nobody was hurt.
More of the roof of the terminal 1 wing in GIA collapsed onto the terminal below.
19 more unstable buildings collapsed in the aftershock, and many rescue operations were halted.
After this aftershock, emergency services started moving debris and collapsed infrastructure, and made alternate routes so residents could easily leave the city without sitting in traffic for hours. Many of these residents had to temporarily stay somewhere else so the city set up a temporary bus route from the first aid camps to the nearby towns and cities. Rescue operations were going on for the remaining of the day and they started fixing some of the collapsed infrastructure at the end of the day.
Victims
205 people died in this earthquake in total, making it one of the deadliest earthquakes in California since the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.
25 people were in the bank of despair tower when it collapsed, 11 people evacuated before the first aftershock hit, but unfortunately when the building collapsed 24 of the 25 people in the building died. 1 person survived and she was found and rescued 2 days after the original collapse. The Building collapsed onto the bridge and warehouses below, killing 1 person as she was driving on the bridge, and injuring 3 workers in the warehouse.
One of the deadliest disasters was the collapse of interstate I-105, with cars being buried in debris and crushed under infrastructure. Many nightshift residents were driving home, while early morning workers were driving to work. Many cars were on the interstate, and 2 people were in the parking lot beneath the interstate. The earthquake struck and large parts of the bridge collapsed onto the parking lot below. A couple who just returned from an early morning jog in the park were both found dead, as they stood next to their car in the parking lot below. another 29 people died due to cars being buried by rubble. and 4 people who were skating in the skatepark all died due to the falling debris. 35 people died in this horrible incident.
Aftermath
Rescue operations were going on for at least another week, many residents opted to stay outside of the city in fear for another aftershock, which never came.
Many businesses were closed for days after the quake, and greenfield took a large economical hit.
The Ashfield and Downtown hospitals were both closed due to structural concerns, and the people had to be moved into nearby hospitals, causing them to be overfilled and short on staff.
Cleaning up the debris took weeks, and was very difficult in some cases; for example, the train that crashed into the canal, the collapsed bank of despair tower, and other large pieces of debris. They took weeks, almost months to clean up. To this day there are still collapsed buildings all over the city, but especially on the northern side.
During the first few days phone services and electrical power were out and wouldn't return until 5 days after the earthquake, while less important areas like Los Llanos and Westwood didn't have power until 2 weeks later.
The death toll was 205, with more than 10 thousand injured. In addition, property damage was estimated to be $45–150 billion.
Even though many people recovered in the years after, many are still traumatized and miss their family members lost in the earthquake, many memorials were put up for the earthquake, with people calling it "the earthquake that shook the world", for example a mural was made in Glenview called Windflower Wildfire, which pictures a grassland with a large windflower burning down.