Quake Rocks Parts Of Redwood National and State Parks

Redwood National and State Parks (CA)
Quake Rocks Parts Of Park, Causing Minor Damage

On Saturday, January 9th, an earthquake struck the northern California coast just southwest of Eureka. The 6.5 temblor was felt widely in northern California and southern Oregon, with some reports of shaking felt as far as Reno, Nevada. The southern end of Redwood National Park is located approximately 35 miles north of Eureka, in the town of Orick. The park maintains its southern headquarters in Orick, as well as some shared office space in Arcata. The Arcata office is within 30 miles of the earthquake epicenter. Many of the employees who work in Orick and Arcata live in communities around Humboldt Bay, which were most impacted by the quake. The office buildings in both Orick and Arcata suffered no structural damage from the quake. Two computer servers, one each in Arcata and Orick, were damaged, though, with one needing to be replaced. The other was repaired. Two computers that were operating during the quake were also damaged. One, a laptop, was damaged beyond repair, as the ground motion damaged the internal components (i.e. motherboard). The other was repaired and is back in service. The quake had varying impacts on employees living in the area near the epicenter. Those in Eureka almost unanimously reported this quake to be very severe and extremely frightening – and many of them have lived most of their lives in California and are no strangers to earthquakes. Most if not all the employees living in Eureka suffered material damage within their homes, with items flying off shelves or toppling over onto the floor. One reported finding all of her kitchen knives spread out on the floor throughout her kitchen, having been ejected from the knife block in which they were stored. Fortunately, none of these employees or their family members were injured, nor did any report structural damage to their property. Farther away in Arcata and McKinleyville, park employees reported the shaking as being scary, but not as severe as what has been described in Eureka. For folks in these communities, hardly any items toppled over and damage was minimal to non-existent. This was the largest quake in the region since 1992. It did not generate a tsunami because the motion on the fault was horizontal and therefore did not cause any significant sea floor displacement. There’s about a four in five chance of a strong and possibly damaging aftershock.