On this day 40 years ago, a 6.6 magnitude earthquake broke at 6:01 a.m.Here's an old video segment on the earthquake that hit that day:
Sylmar got its name on the event, but the epicenter was deep under the San Gabriel Mountains, in the San Fernando fault zone.
The quake ripped open the surface for about 12 miles in the mountains and San Fernando Valley, knocked down parts of the SFV Veterans Hospital and Olive View hospital in Sylmar, toppled the same freeway interchange in Newhall Pass that fell again in the 1994 Northridge quake, caused landslides and set fires burning in city streets.
Sixty-five people died, most of them at the VA hospital.
Many more were left homeless, but the quake occurred early enough in the day that schools were unoccupied and the freeways were not crowded.
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
A Shaky Day 40 Years Ago
Forty years ago this morning I was in bed, getting ready to get up for another day as a freshman at La Quinta High School in Westminster. For a moment I thought my mom was vigorously shaking my bed to get me up, but that wasn't it:
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My parents lived near Montrose then.
My mother was visiting us in Sunnyvale to help with a newborn.
Dad was home alone and as I recall there was some superficial damage, broken china, emptied cupboards, but I don't recall anything terribly serious.
Except that the lights flashing on and off (mercury switches) bothered dad. and when he got back to the bedroom the large round mirror (we have it in a box downstairs I think) that had been hanging above the head of the bed had landed on the pillow where dad's head had been.
We all learned to say thanks a lot.
But I remember driving by Olive view and see the only thing standing was the stair-wells. (That was a TB hospital when I was a little kid.)
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