PINE MOUNTAIN CLUB, Calif. (KERO) — In Pine Mountain Club, they’re taking extra steps beyond the drill to be prepared for an earthquake.
- California is no stranger to earthquakes. In fact, California's largest fault, the San Andreas Fault, runs right through Kern County.
- While there’s no telling exactly when the "big one" will occur, the mountain communities take extra steps to be prepared.
- The 2024 Great Shakeout starts at 10:17 a.m. on Thursday, October 17, 2024.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
“This is really important because we can survive earthquakes, we can survive any disaster if we’re prepared.”
January 9, 1857. Just past 8 a.m.
The ‘Fort Tejon Earthquake’ shook at a magnitude 7.9, according to the United States Geological Survey.
Jeremy Lancaster, state geologist and director of the California Geological Survey, said that was the last major earthquake event in the area.
“It caused 225 miles of surface rupture along the length of the San Andreas,” said Lancaster. “It shifted the ground laterally, so sideways, up to a maximum of 30 feet, and shaking lasted about three minutes. That was the maximum duration of shaking.”
When it comes to preparing for the next disaster, it’s important to look at what we’ve seen in the past.
Based on the Fort Tejon earthquake, Lancaster said the mountains can expect similar impacts including; violent shaking, ground failure or surface rupture, landslides, and liquefaction.
“... What we could expect in a similar large earthquake event, it would be again, extreme ground shaking that could affect buildings and infrastructure, particularly older buildings that are built out of reinforced masonry, and then infrastructure like bridges.
He said an earthquake of similar characteristics could have serious impacts to roads and homes.
“That could affect major lifelines like the I-5 freeway,” said Lancaster. “There we could anticipate landslides, because there’s plenty of steeply sloping terrain in the region, and liquefaction along the creeks where they’re saturated. And that’s like Cuddy Creek is one of the main ones of the Frazier Park area.”
Lancaster says it’s key to prepare beforehand.
In Pine Mountain Club, residents participate in the Great Shakeout every year.
“All over the world at that time people are gonna drop, cover, and hold on, and they’re gonna assess what could have fallen on them, what could have flown across the room,” said Kathleen Weinstein, a member of the Pine Mountain Club Property Owners Association's Emergency Preparedness Committee.
She says that Pine Mountain Club is especially in danger, since San Andreas Fault runs right through the community.
Weinstein said that radios will be crucial if a major earthquake occurs.
“These are gonna be our lifeline in any disaster because they reach every corner of Pine Mountain Club, and people will be able to call into the sub incident command center and say, ‘Hey, we have casualties, we have a problem.’ And they will relay information back saying help is on the way,” said Weinstein.
She says the community will have to look out for each other.
“We may be isolated for as much as three weeks or a month before real supplies come in,” said Weinstein. “... We need to be our own first responders.”
“Having the radio, knowing your neighbors, being prepared with supplies, protecting yourself, duck covering, and hold on– these are all important things,” said Weinstein.
Another tool Lancaster suggests is the MyShake application, which could detect an earthquake seconds beforehand and send you an alert to prepare for the shaking.
“If you have seconds of warning… you can take shelter before you actually start feeling the shaking, before things start falling,” said Lancaster.
The 2024 Great Shakeout starts at 10:17 a.m. on Thursday, October 17, 2024.
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