http://msnbc.msn.com/Default.aspx?id=3784234&p1=0
NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 10:31 a.m. ET Dec. 23, 2003
When the search was suspended Monday night, search and rescue crews in Paso Robles had combed all seriously damaged buildings and were confident they had found all the quake’s victims, though the owner of one car crushed in the rubble still had not been located.
“We’re out of rescue mode and now it’s just going to be general debris removal,” said Battalion Chief Scott Hall of the Ventura County Fire Department.
PASO ROBLES, Calif. - As authorities in California toted up the damage from a strong earthquake that everyone agreed could have been far worse, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday was to tour the downtown area of Paso Robles, where two women were killed when the temblor toppled an historic clock tower.
Earlier in the day, the bodies of Jennifer Myrick, 19, of Atascadero, and Marilyn Zafuto, 55, of Paso Robles, were found on the street outside a dress shop, police Sgt. Bob Adams said.
“It appeared as though they were trying to get away,” he said. Citywide there were reports of about 40 minor injuries, said Adams.
Officials inspected more than 80 downtown buildings and all remained off-limits Monday night. More than 40 structures in San Luis Obispo County suffered damage in the 6.5 magnitude eathquake.
10,000 homes and businesses without power
About 10,000 homes and businesses remained without power in the coastal area of central California area, said John Nelson, spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric.
Authorities said the building that partially collapsed in Paso Robles – the two-story Acorn Building -- was constructed of wooden framing and unreinforced brick. Such buildings tend to fare worst in quakes, and many California cities banned unreinforced masonry in new buildings after a massive temblor struck Long Beach in 1933.
Centered downtown and overlooking a park, the building constructed in 1892 housed a jewelry store, dress shop and storage space.
A local law requires Paso Robles buildings to be retrofitted by 2018, said Doug Monn, a city building official.
The 11:16 a.m. quake was the state’s first deadly earthquake since the 6.7-magnitude temblor that hit Northridge in 1994, and the most powerful in California since a 7.1 quake struck the desert near Joshua Tree more than four years ago. No one was killed in the 1999 quake.
At least 50 aftershocks
The main shock Monday was centered in a sparsely populated area about 11 miles north of the coastal town of Cambria. By early Tuesday, it had been followed by at least 90 aftershocks larger than 3.0, the biggest of which was estimated at 4.7, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The state Office of Emergency Services said there was a 90 percent or greater probability that aftershocks of 5.0 magnitude or greater would follow in the next week.
The quake shook the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, the estate of the legendary publisher William Randolph Hearst. The castle — a particularly popular tourist attraction this time of its year because of its Hearst family Christmas ornaments — reported no injuries and no immediate signs of any serious damage but was evacuated as a precaution. It was scheduled to be open Tuesday.
The quake also shook the federal courthouse in San Francisco, 165 miles to the northwest of the epicenter, and sent the building’s upper floors swaying for about 30 seconds. People in downtown Los Angeles, 185 miles southeast, felt a sustained rolling motion.
Paso Robles hardest hit
Paso Robles, a town of 25,000 people about 20 miles east of the epicenter in a region dotted with wineries and horse ranches, bore the heaviest damage.
“My roof basically jumped onto the street and landed on cars with people in them,” said Nick Sherwin, 61, who operated Pan Jewelers in the Acorn Building. The cars were “crushed like little toys, nothing left.”
Marilyn Curry watched the buildings collapse from her law firm across the street, then ran to a city park where people were frantically searching for others they knew.
“There were people shouting outside ’Oh my God, Oh my God,”’ she said. “Everybody was just shaking, then we were all just grabbing onto each other.
“There was a lot of hugging going on. We were all just accounting for each other: ‘Have you seen so and so? Have you seen so and so?”’
The smell of sulfur also quickly filled the air: The quake had ruptured a capped pipe that used to deliver artesian well water to mud baths for which Paso Robles was once famous.
Damage appeared minor elsewhere in the region. Several people were reported hurt by falling barrels at a winery, San Luis Obispo County authorities said.
The quake opened cracks on Highway 1, and state crews were checking cracking and buckling on Highway 46, but both routes remained open, the Highway Patrol said. A rock slide closed a rural road.
Felt at nuclear plant
The quake was felt in the control room of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant operated by PG&E. Nelson said that there appeared to be no damage to the plant and that it was functioning normally, but officials would conduct a “walk-through” to be sure.
The quake struck in a known fault zone on a series of faults that run parallel to the San Andreas Fault, said Lucy Jones, scientist in charge of the U.S. Geological Survey office in Pasadena.
Monday’s quake was the state’s most powerful since 1999, when a nonfatal magnitude-7.1 temblor struck the desert near Joshua Tree. The last one of a similar size in the area was in 1952, said Ross Stein of the USGS in Menlo Park.
The 1994 Northridge quake hit a densely populated area near Los Angeles and killed 72 people, injured 9,000 and caused an estimated $15.3 billion in insured losses.
NBC's Kevin Sites in Paso Robles and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
We just had an earthquake
)
update
Linear Mode
