Ray's Food Place in Fortuna, California, on Dec. 5, 2024. (Sukey Lewis/KQED)
Updated 3:30 p.m., Thursday
A widespread tsunami warning that was triggered by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake Thursday morning set off an hour of scrambled evacuation efforts across coastal Northern California before it was canceled.
Shaking from the large quake, which struck at 10:44 a.m. off the coast of Humboldt County, was felt across Northern California and the Bay Area, and it prompted early warning alerts on cellphones. It was followed by at least two dozen smaller aftershocks in the area, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
By 11:55 a.m., the National Tsunami Warning Center called off the warning, which had covered the Bay Area and other coastal areas stretching from Santa Cruz County to Oregon.
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In that hour, though, the seemingly dire messages led to a mix of confusion and indifference throughout the Bay Area as people, and their local leaders, tried to figure out what to make of a widespread tsunami warning. Emergency alerts blared on cellphones across Northern California, and officials rushed to order evacuations for coastal areas in the tsunami risk zone, including West Berkeley and parts of Del Norte County. Schools in Oakland were sheltering in place, and one campus in West Oakland was evacuated.
BART halted service in the Transbay Tube for about 45 minutes, and even Salesforce Tower and other downtown San Francisco buildings were in the process of being cleared out, a representative for Pier 39 said before the tsunami warning was canceled.
A SFFD firefighter warns surfers in the water to evacuate for a tsunami warning at Ocean Beach in San Francisco on Thursday, Dec. 5, 2024. (Juliana Yamada/KQED)
After the initial shock — and tsunami warning — had passed, San Francisco officials urged residents to use the morning’s events as an opportunity to prepare for aftershocks and future earthquakes.
“We want to make sure that folks don’t clarify today as a false alarm,” said Justin Schorr, a rescue captain with the San Francisco Fire Department. “The alert issued today was the highest level of tsunami warning that we have. If we weren’t prepared today to evacuate inland or to higher ground, this gives us a great opportunity to be prepared for next time.”
During the warning, San Francisco urged residents to move at least a block inland off the coast, and the San Francisco Zoo evacuated its guests.
Meanwhile, dozens of people gathered at Fort Mason to get an up-close look at the anticipated waves from 50 feet above sea level. None came, but Schorr said that doesn’t mean the city is totally in the clear.
“Our biggest concern right now is aftershocks, and there could be a significant aftershock that triggers another tsunami warning,” he said.
The city’s tsunami evacuation zones are mapped out at sf72.org, Schorr noted, adding that people should make a plan for where they’ll go if they find themselves within one in the future.
The largest areas where evacuations are necessary during tsunami warnings are along Ocean Beach in the Sunset, throughout the Marina as far in as Chestnut Street in some places, and portions of North Beach and the Financial District. But in general, the city — and much of the Bay Area at large — isn’t at a huge risk.
Along Fourth Street in Berkeley, an outdoor shopping strip not far from the San Francisco Bay, stores closed temporarily, but business was mostly back to normal shortly after city officials lifted the evacuation order. Several shoppers were unconcerned.
San Pablo resident Edna Garcia was shopping in REI when she was told she needed to leave. “It was kind of — not scary, but unusual, right?” she said. “I’m one of those people who are just, ‘Don’t freak out.’ If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna happen.”
Richmond resident Lee Glickstein was waiting at the Genius Bar in the Apple Store when the evacuation order came. He left the store, but remained in the area.
“I just had to wait around,” he said. “No big deal.”
The earthquake’s epicenter was about 40 miles from the community of Petrolia, at a depth of 0.37 miles. It occurred where three tectonic plates meet — the Pacific, North American and Juan de Fuca plates. That’s “historically the most seismically active part of California,” seismologist Lucy Jones said in a social media post.
Minutes later, another significant earthquake — initially reported as a magnitude 5.8 but later revised down to 4.1 — was reported at 10:47 a.m., centered near the border of Sonoma and Lake counties. It struck several miles off the San Andreas Fault, where the Pacific and North American plates converge.
Though the tsunami warning fizzled out without any significant surge in the Bay Area, residents and businesses on the North Coast reported some minor damage from the 7.0 earthquake. Authorities in Humboldt County did not immediately have information on damage to structures or roads, but Caroline Titus, who lives in the small city of Ferndale, said she almost immediately recognized the quake as a big one.
“I ran outside, saw my little Honda Fit jumping up and down in the driveway, and then my instincts kicked in,” she said.
Titus lives just off of Ferndale’s commercial district and walked through many of its stores shortly after the quake hit. There didn’t appear to be any buildings with window or structure damage, she said, but cans were rolling on the floor of the Main Street grocery store, and glasses had shattered behind the bar at a local pub.
Across the street at the local cemetery, some headstones had been knocked out of place or repositioned.
“Just stuff off shelves, in our house it’s just a mess, lots of glass broken,” Titus said. “We’re pretty good about making sure that we don’t have heavy stuff up high, but it still all comes down and cupboards open.”
In Fortuna, about 50 miles from the epicenter of the quake, Ray’s Food Place had minimal damage that shut down the grocery store for a few hours. Manager Brandon Giordano estimated that about $30,000 worth of merchandise was being swept up by other shop employees, including shattered bottles of salad dressing, cans of tomato sauce and jars of pickles.
A 1,320-foot-long concrete arch bridge that spans the Eel River near Fortuna in Humboldt County was damaged and closed on Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022, following an early morning 6.4 magnitude earthquake that rattled the region. (Courtesy Caltrans District 1)
He said the impact wasn’t nearly as bad as the magnitude 6.4 earthquake that rocked the town in December 2022 and its aftershock on New Year’s Day in 2023.
“We’re not going to have to shut down other than temporarily to clean up some mess,” he told KQED. “We’re hoping to be open for the public in about half an hour. Overall, not nearly as bad, but definitely a scare.”
Gary Goade, a city building official doing inspections in Fortuna after the shaking subsided, said most buildings he had been to seemed to sustain less damage than in recent quakes. There was some damage to personal items and sheetrock, but he hadn’t seen anything dangerous.
“We got real lucky,” he said. “It really moved around here, but most everything where we normally see damage happening to here didn’t happen.”
About 10 miles south in Rio Dell, City Manager Kyle Knopp said there was similarly little damage, though one middle school campus had a gas leak that sent students home. The leak at Monument Middle School is now closed off.
Power also went out throughout much of the town, and a large crack broke down the road that connects Rio Dell to Fortuna and Ferndale.
“We’re working on that, but the road is still passable at this time and there’s no rain in the forecast,” Knopp told KQED. If rain does get into the crack, it could cause further problems.
He reiterated Goade’s thankfulness that the damage seemed minimal.
“December is becoming earthquake season here, unfortunately,” Knopp said. “Hopefully with the mathematical odds of that, it’ll give December a break for the next three or four decades, but we’ll find out.”
