It was the harbinger of the kind of seismic activity that younger millennials and Gen Zers have never experienced. California\u2019s largest cities have been spared major destructive temblors over the last quarter century. <\/p>\n
The lucky streak won\u2019t last forever<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a reminder that what a big chunk of the population has grown up with is not the long-term norm\u201d for earthquake activity in California, said seismologist Lucy Jones, a Caltech research associate, in an interview. <\/p>\n
And while California has made strides in earthquake safety \u2014 with some cities ordering retrofits of vulnerable buildings \u2014 progress has been uneven. <\/p>\n
Los Angeles has ordered the retrofit of brick buildings, wooden apartments and brittle concrete buildings, but hasn\u2019t required inspections of possibly vulnerable steel skyscrapers<\/a>. Inland Empire cities in the path of the notorious San Andreas fault haven\u2019t ordered the retrofit or demolition of old brick buildings<\/a>, which could rain debris capable of crushing pedestrians, cars and buses with deadly force onto sidewalks and streets during shaking.<\/p>\n A partially collapsing brick building in San Francisco crushed cars during the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake. Five people died after the brick building\u2019s fourth-story wall fell onto the parking lot below.<\/p>\n (C.E. Meyer \/ U.S. Geological Survey)<\/p>\n Given the uneven progress, scientists are getting ready to update the ShakeOut scenario<\/a> \u2014 a projection of the devastation that would result from a plausible magnitude 7.8 earthquake on the San Andreas. When it was first released in 2008<\/a>, researchers said a quake of that strength could kill more than 1,800 people, injure 50,000 others and cause $200 billion in damage. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve done a bunch of things \u2014 and they\u2019ve made a difference,\u201d Jones, the lead author of ShakeOut, said. \u201cAnd there\u2019s things we haven\u2019t done. And what opportunities have we lost?\u201d <\/p>\n Jones said she recently got some seed funding at her center \u2014 the Dr. Lucy Jones Center for Science and Society \u2014 to work on updating the ShakeOut scenario. It\u2019s important, she said, because it\u2019s been more than three decades since L.A.\u2019s last destructive metro-area earthquake, and such a large natural disaster is not a matter of if, but when.<\/p>\n But whether the disaster becomes a catastrophe depends on the work done ahead of time.<\/p>\n Freeways collapse during the 1994 Northridge earthquake.<\/p>\n (Steve Dykes \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n After all, as the ShakeOut report says, a catastrophe is \u201ca disaster when a society is not prepared for the amount of disruption that occurs,\u201d with the effects lasting for decades.<\/p>\n Shakeout 2.0, for instance, could contemplate the possibility of a magnitude 7.8 quake producing a massive urban fire 10 times as large as what burned in the Eaton and Palisades fires combined, Jones said. <\/p>\n Among the reasons why Southern California was seen as vulnerable, the report said in 2008, was a loss of water due to quake damage and the resulting inability of firefighters to extinguish blazes. <\/p>\n One plausible scenario envisions several simultaneous conflagrations in San Bernardino, Riverside, Santa Ana and South L.A. The scenario says the fires alone could kill nearly 900 people and cause $90 billion in property damage.<\/p>\n Such a huge fire footprint has massive public health implications, Jones said: \u201cImagine we\u2019re putting out 10 times as much aerosolized lead and arsenic.\u201d<\/p>\n California\u2019s terrifying decade of earthquakes<\/p>\n Although California is known as earthquake country, it has fewer quakes on average than places such as Japan and New Zealand.<\/p>\n As a result, the dynamic and imperative around quake preparedness is \u201cjust a pretty different social equation\u201d in the Golden State. <\/p>\n Still, California can get megaquakes. Quakes with a magnitude of 7.9 last hit Southern California<\/a> in 1857 and Northern California<\/a> in 1906. <\/p>\n Following the 1986 North Palm Springs earthquake, 1987 brought Los Angeles County its first major urban quake in 16 years: the magnitude 5.9 Whittier Narrows earthquake<\/a>. It struck at 7:42 a.m. on Oct. 1, 1987, and left eight people dead \u2014 including a Cal State L.A. student crushed to death<\/a> by a concrete slab from a parking garage, a construction worker buried alive<\/a> in a shaft in the San Gabriel Mountains and a man who was thought<\/a> to have been so frightened by the shaking that he jumped out his second-story apartment in Maywood.<\/p>\n The upper deck of Interstate 880 in Oakland collapses on the lower deck, killing 42 people and injuring 108 others. <\/p>\n (Paul Sakuma \/ AP)<\/p>\n Even bigger and more destructive quakes followed. In 1989, the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta quake<\/a> hit Northern California, killing 63 people and causing $6 billion in damage.<\/p>\n The pace continued in Southern California, leading up to a destructive finale. 1990 brought a magnitude 5.5 quake<\/a> in Upland, followed by the magnitude 5.8 Sierra Madre<\/a> quake that killed a woman<\/a> at the Santa Anita racetrack June 28, 1991.<\/p>\n Exactly a year later, the magnitude 7.3 Landers earthquake<\/a>, with an epicenter near Joshua Tree, killed<\/a> a 3-year-old boy at a slumber party when the bricks from a nearby fireplace came crashing down. That temblor triggered a magnitude 6.5 Big Bear earthquake just three hours later, raising concerns that the San Andreas might be next. <\/p>\n Then came the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake of 1994<\/a> that killed 60 people and caused an estimated $40 billion in damage.<\/p>\n Three earthquakes greater than magnitude 7 have shaken up Southern California in the last three decades: the magnitude 7.1 Hector Mine<\/a> earthquake of 1999, the 2010 magnitude 7.2 Easter Sunday<\/a> Baja California Sierra El Mayor earthquake and the magnitude 7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake<\/a> of 2019. <\/p>\n![\"Crushed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781178676_613_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Freeways](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781178677_184_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781178677_153_.jpeg\")
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