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What would happen if a 7.9 earthquake hit Bakersfield?
| Tuesday, May 13 2008 6:00 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 14 2008 8:41 AM
If a big quake hits here, the ground would shake, windows would break and people would die, officials say.
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At least 100 buildings, many of them un-reinforced brick buildings, could not handle the magnitude 7.5 quake that hit Kern County at 4:52 a.m. on July 21, 1952, when the White Wolf fault ruptured south of Arvin. It was the largest quake in Southern California since the 1850s.
The quake killed 12 people, caused at least $50 million in property damage and caused more than 100 Kern County buildings to be torn down. It was felt from San Diego to Nevada. The un-reinforced brick buildings have since been outlawed.
Photos:
A wrecking crane destroyed what was left of the Beale Memorial Clock Tower on Nov. 13, 1952, after the earthquakes caused it to crumble. ( Photo courtesy of Beale Library )
This building at 223 E. 18th St. is not retrofitted for earthquakes.
Wreckage of the St. George's Orthodox Greek Church after the 1952 earthquake. The church was located at 401 Truxtun Ave.
This building at 705 Sumner St. is not retrofitted for earthquakes.
The Kern County Equipment Co. building on East 19th Street was heavily damaged during the Bakersfield earthquake on August 22, 1952. ( Photo courtesy of Jerry McCright )
This building at 2030 14th St. is not retrofitted for earthquakes.
Even with tough building codes, many buildings in Kern County would suffer major damage if a 7.9-magnitude quake, like the one in China, struck here, building officials and experts said.
The quake is China's worst earthquake in more than three decades.
It comes more than 55 years after Kern County's own 7.5 quake that killed a dozen and toppled 100 buildings.
California has strict building codes when it comes to earthquakes, and they are constantly being updated. The county also requires older buildings to be retrofitted to withstand a quake.
That doesn’t mean every structure will stay standing after a big one, said Randy Fidler, chief code enforcement officer for the city.
“What the buildings were designed to do is give people enough time to get out of the buildings in an earthquake,” Fidler said. “It doesn't mean they're not going to take a hit.”
U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Gerald Bawden said U.S. building standards are better than China’s, but there would likely still be a large number of fatalities if a massive quake struck here.
How many?
Officials declined to guess, but agreed it would probably be worse than previous quakes.
The 1952 earthquake killed 12 people and a massive temblor in the Fort Tejon area in 1857 killed just two people.
Of course there were a lot fewer people in those days, Bawden said.
“We got lucky,” he said, referring to the Fort Tejon quake.
Today there are far more people and structures in Kern County.
“Things shake down and no matter how well prepared you are, things are going to fall down,” Bawden said.
Some buildings are more vulnerable than others.
About 26 buildings throughout Bakersfield, mostly older buildings downtown, have yet to be retrofitted for earthquakes.
Don’t worry, you probably don’t live or work in any of those structures. They are required to post signs warning of the danger and can only be used for certain purposes, such as storage.
The county also prevents people from building near fault lines, said Ted James, the county planning director. Planners consult geologic reports before allowing new construction, he said.
However there is one large structure built near a fault line: The Isabella Dam.
An active earthquake fault discovered under the two dams at Isabella Lake has been identified as one factor that could cause a collapse of either the main or the auxiliary dam.
Officials say they haven’t studied exactly how much shaking the dam could take before it collapsed, but a 2005 report indicated it would take an 8-or-9-magnitude earthquake while the dam was full to bring it down.
If the dam did collapse when filled to its allowed limit, downtown Bakersfield would face floodwaters 10 to 20 feet and the rest of Bakersfield, and most of the San Joaquin Valley floor past Interstate 5, would be five or six feet deep, according to a report by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
It would take six to 12 hours for water in Bakersfield to rise to one foot deep and make escaping by car difficult.
The good news?
Bawden, the seismologist, said no dam in the U.S. has ever failed because of an earthquake. And the lake has been kept well below full capacity since the fault was discovered.
And, Bawden says, it is likely we will all be long dead before the next massive quake hits.
Bawden said the White Wolf Fault on average causes large earthquakes only once every few hundred years.