Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger toured the community hardest hit by California’s first deadly earthquake in nine years, declaring a local state of emergency even as aftershocks rattled beneath the central wine country.
”Obviously it’s going to be a rough Christmas for people here in Paso Robles and the economic impact on the city has yet to be felt,” said Paso Robles Mayor Frank Meacham on Tuesday.
Meacham and Dallas Jones, director of the state Office of Emergency Services, showed Schwarzenegger the scene where the quake demolished a historic clock tower building, a landmark in the community of nearly 27 000.
Schwarzenegger pointed to a severely damaged building on one side of a street and an intact building on the other side.
”Here you can see very clearly the difference in a building that hasn’t been retrofitted and one that has been retrofitted,” said the governor, who stopped to shake hands with firefighters.
”Did you go to bed yet?” he asked them. ”A couple of hours? Oh, that’s good.”
The fault system that unleashed the quake about 32km to the northwest of Paso Robles remains active. There had been 100 magnitude-3 or higher aftershocks by Wednesday morning.
The aftershock sequence is likely to continue for months and perhaps upward of a year, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said. There is a 90% or greater probability that aftershocks of magnitude 5 or greater will follow in the next week.
Bad weather prevented helicopters from taking USGS scientists on aerial surveys on Tuesday and there is no definitive evidence of a surface rupture of the fault, geologist Davis Schwartz said.
There is no immediate estimate of the total value of quake-related damage. A detailed analysis of damage is being developed, said Office of Emergency Services spokesperson Dale Chessey.
Schwarzenegger’s declaration of an emergency in San Luis Obispo County directs state resources to be made available to help. It also means inspectors will come to determine whether assistance should be sought from the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the Small Business Administration for low-cost loans for repair and recovery.
The quake’s two fatalities, Jennifer Myrick (20) of Atascadero and Marilyn Zafuto (55) of Paso Robles, were found on the street outside the 1892 clock tower, which pitched into the street and crushed a row of parked cars.
Other damage includes City Hall in Atascadero, about 16km south of Paso Robles, and some cracked roads, said Ron Alsop, county emergency services coordinator.
Damage appears limited to the rural county between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Seismologists believe the quake occurred on the Oceanic fault zone, which runs from north of San Simeon southeast to the Santa Lucia Range on the west side of the giant San Andreas Fault. The region is largely countryside — vineyards, wineries and ranches — which limited damage.
”We’re in a sense lucky that the area that was ruptured was relatively sparsely inhabited by California standards. Of course the people in Paso Robles and Atascadero are not the beneficiaries of this particular piece of luck,” said Jack Boatwright, a USGS geophysicist. — Sapa-AP
On the net: www.usgs.gov