No deaths are reported but California Assesses Damage After Second Powerful Earthquake Hits.
A magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocked southern California Friday night, sending tremors that could be felt in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and nearly 400 miles north in Sacramento. The quake caused fires, power outages and collapsed buildings, officials said.
The powerful quake struck around 8:20 p.m. local time and was centered near Ridgecrest, Calif., a community of 29,000 people on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada where a 6.4 temblor had hit Thursday morning. The latest quake lasted about 30 seconds and was the strongest in Southern California in 20 years. A series of aftershocks followed.
There is a 9% chance that an even more powerful earthquake could come over the next week, said Mark Benthien, spokesman for the Southern California Earthquake Center at the University of Southern California.
Typically you don’t see that type of escalation, but it’s possible,” he said. That estimate was made by the U.S. Geological Survey, he said.
The 7.1 magnitude earthquake on Friday was 11 times stronger than the 6.4 magnitude quake that hit on Thursday, Mr. Benthien said.
USGS said in a statement Saturday that millions of people in the region felt the shaking from the latest quake. The federal agency said it issued a red alert for economic losses from the quake, estimating the financial toll to be at least $1 billion. Past events with this alert level have required a national- or international-level response, according to the USGS.
Friday’s quake rocked buildings in Los Angeles, interrupted a Los Angeles Dodgers game and led Disneyland to evacuate rides.
Had the earthquake hit a large population center, the economic losses would have been in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars.
The earthquake may give the Fed an additional excuse to cut rates later this month.
Mike”Mish” Shedlock
Small earthquakes often precede large earthquakes. The biggest one will be when the Cascadia Subduction zone snaps. It’s overdue like many of the major faults out west.
I was about 150 miles from Ridgecrest when the 7/5 quake hit. It was the first time I ever definitely and for sure felt an earthquake. No damage at all near the coast where I was. As for the “State of Emergency”, I suspect Gov. Newscum thought there might be some kind of political points to get out of that.
“Had the earthquake hit a large population center, the economic losses would have been in the tens or hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Don’t remember the numbers, but the Northridge quake was expensive to the point that insurance companies suspended coverage, resulting in a state earthquake insurance authority created to cover insured earthquake claims. Don’t know the numbers, but apparently not a large % of people have earthquake insurance. One of my co-workers lived in Northridge and had serious damage. He wound up suing his insurance company.
As a result of the number of homes lost in wildfires fires last year, fire insurance had a higher bump up in rates than typical.
Many insurance companies will no longer insure properties in CA that are anywhere near brush or woodland areas.
Declaring a “State of Emergency” doesn’t imply Federal funds will flow to California. It simply suspends the civil rights of the people of California, and allows the government to take any action that it deems appropriate. It will allow them to impose curfews, and arrest or disperse crowds, etc.
Was it necessary? I doubt it, but then, I’m not there. Perhaps there are looters out in force.
It does make federal funding available (more so than non emergency). That is why governors declare it.
Your civil rights are given by your creator (see the Constitution), not by courts or governors. They cannot legally be suspended, no matter what propaganda you see on bubble vision. Yes politicians try and yes they make statements of suspended rights — but declaring it does not make it so.
When Abe Lincoln suspended habeus corpus, it impacted very few persons and it was reinstated before most of the populace heard of the suspension. More importantly, Lincoln was never challenged in court… Lincoln himself doubted it would hold up if challenged
“Men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights…”
Civil rights are endowed to us by our creator, not by government. That is the supreme law of the land.
“Inalienable” means those rights cannot be taken away. Not by guberntorial proclamation, not by supreme court mutterings, and not by presidential decree either.
Again, Lincoln was the president who first attempted to suspend civil rights. He was never challenged in court, and in his writings he said he doubted it would hold up in court.
We the people can choose to honor a curfew, because it is in our own interest / safety to do so. That doesn’t suspend our rights, it is actually us exercising our right to be secure in our person (one part of one of our inalienable rights)
I don’t remember there being a curfew here in the aftermath of the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Looting was not particularly an issue. There were not mass evacuations, as with the brush fires. The most serious damage was along Reseda Blvd. where the directional force of the quake was greatest and resulted in a certain number of red tagged apartment buildings.
The Rodney King riots did result in an overnight curfew. An electronics store and a 7/11 were looted jut 2 blocks from where i worked and someone tried to set the bushes in front of my workplace on fire.
Mish: “The earthquake may give the Fed an additional excuse to cut rates later this month.”
Seriously?!?!? You propose messing up the entire global financial system over something that caused zero deaths and almost no property damage?
This sissy nonsense where every little disturbance is another excuse to cry for another rate cut is wearing thin. How about you ask your mommy to kiss your boo boo instead?
Its bad enough that every rain drop causes State governors to declare “state of emergency” …aka… “we want more federal funds”. No one expects the politicians to act like grown ups. But now the sissies of wall street are going to further loot retirement savings … because a natural phenomenon that killed zero persons and minimal damage?
Embarrassing Mish
why declare a “State of Emergency”? money
There were no deaths and damage appears to be fairly minimal. So why declare a “State of Emergency”?
A few days ago in San Bruno, CA, a couple of gang members in a local mall got into an argument, pulled a couple fo guns and shot at each other. Two people were hit, no one killed. Something like 150+ police and other forces responded!. From up to 30 miles away, as I understand it. The local news stations made a big event of this minor incident, preempting coverage to go on and on regurgitating (I am not going to call it “reporting”) the same small amount of information over and over, hour after hour. They interviewed a few people who would talk to them and fanned the flames of fear. It was a travesty in so many ways.
We live in a society that is afraid of its own shadow nowadays. The smallest incident gets blown out of proportion due to fear. Everything turns into an emergency. If you try to question it you get a response like “well, out of an abundance of caution…” and the people cannot understand why YOU are not afraid. Sad!
Have to declare a state of emergency to get some of that FEMA money.
It was a mind-clearing 30 seconds here, north of San Diego…in the sense Winston Churchill meant by, “There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result.” A helpless feeling, too and hoping we were the epicenter of a weak quake, not one in LA destroying their world.