It’s been 20 years since San Simeon Earthquake shook SLO County. Here’s what it looked like
Californians don’t forget where they were when a big shaker like the San Simeon Earthquake hit
A recent small earthquake near Diablo Canyon Power Plant, too small to name, reminds us that most California geography with a hill or cleft may have tectonic forces at work beneath the ground.
And note to keep in mind is that various magnitude scales for earthquakes are logarithmic, each whole number on the scale is ten times more intense that the previous one. A 5.3 shaker is moderate, but a 6.3 is strong.
About 20 years ago, I was documenting the dedication of a monument to the late Arroyo Grande police officer Richard Berry in front of his police station.
Berry had died from injuries on the Cuesta Grade when his car was struck by a reckless driver as the police officer was driving to work.
The ceremony was concluding as a low rumble was heard, then the odd sensation of a rolling tremor underfoot.
Flagpoles clanked and swayed. Arroyo Grande Police Chief Rick TerBorch said, “we’re going to get a lot of 911 calls about this,” and concluded the ceremony.
The quake’s 6.6 magnitude epicenter was in the mountain range behind Hearst Castle. A thrust fault, one piece of land riding over another, ruptured near the Nacimiento and Oceanic Fault zones.
The mountain was 2.8 inches taller after the shake.
Though the quake shattered a few antique pieces falling to the floor of the Castle, designing architect Julia Morgan’s engineering skill stood the test.
However, much of the force of the earthquake focused in a southeast direction.
There was serious damage from San Miguel to Atascadero.
Some homes on ridge tops suffered damage east of Templeton as the mathematics of wave forms focused on that location, as did structures on sedimentary basins like Guadalupe and Oceano.
Two lives were lost as a building collapsed in Paso Robles: Jennifer Myrick and Marilyn Frost-Zafuto.
Both the Mission San Miguel and Atascadero City Hall were closed for years as the engineering and cost of repairs were solved.
The families of the victims won their case in court seeking a settlement for the failure to reinforce the masonry building that fell when the mid-day quake struck.
Local governments for the first time took a more definitive approach to fixing unreinforced masonry buildings in the wake of the tragedy.
Julie Lynem wrote this overview story a decade after the San Simeon Earthquake, on Dec. 22, 2013:
6.6 temblor shattered the calm of a sunny December morning
In many ways, Dec. 22, 2003, began like any other day in San Luis Obispo County.
“It was a nice morning,” said Nick Sherwin, owner of Pan Jewelers, which had once been located in the now refurbished Acorn Building in Paso Robles. “It was beautiful, sunny and calm. I had just gotten mochas for everyone and brought them back around 10:45 a.m.”
At 11:15 a.m., lives were forever changed when a 6.6 magnitude temblor struck the Central Coast, rocking communities countywide and leaving death and destruction in its wake.
Ann’s Clothing Store employees Jennifer Myrick, 19, and Marilyn Frost-Zafuto, 55, died when the iconic Acorn Building collapsed.
The powerful earthquake was also responsible for at least 40 injuries and the destruction of 50 buildings — 25 of them homes and 25 of them businesses. An assessment of the San Simeon Earthquake released in March 2004 by the county’s Office of Emergency Services estimated local financial damages at more than $239 million.
At the request of then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, then-President George W. Bush declared San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties to be major federal disaster areas.
In the city of Paso Robles, which bore much of the impact, the temblor devastated many local businesses and caused two underground sulfur hot springs to erupt.
At Flamson Middle School, it created large cracks in the auditorium, classrooms and library. Rather than return students to the 84-year-old building, the school was torn down. A $17-million building, built to look like the previous one, has replaced it.
Norma Moye, the city’s Main Street Association director, said at the time that the earthquake was a “nightmare” for the town.
The nightmare, however, reached far beyond that city’s boundaries.
Widespread damage
The Atascadero City Administration Building, with its rotunda top, also received significant damage, resulting in the relocation of city offices to a former bowling alley building at Colony Square. After roughly $43 million in reconstruction and renovation, it reopened in August, in time for the city’s centennial celebrations.
Mission San Miguel was damaged as well, and while some restoration work has been completed, it is expected to continue until 2015.
In Morro Bay, a new $3 million fire station at 715 Harbor St. was built to replace the old structures that were badly damaged in the earthquake. In the city of Guadalupe, there was damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure. Significant damage to infrastructure occurred in the city of Oceano as well, because shaking from the quake caused liquefaction.
The earthquake spared most of the artifacts at Hearst Castle, with only a dozen damaged. The city of San Luis Obispo also remained mostly unscathed, although the quake set a sizable seismic retrofit program in motion.
Through it all, the county learned that it was not immune to natural disaster or tragedy, and it led county officials to make some changes in an effort to respond more effectively to emergencies.
Ron Alsop, the county’s emergency services manager, said the response to the San Simeon Earthquake went well, as the city of Paso Robles had just updated its emergency response plan and the “county had a generally effective response plan.”
“One of the reasons it went as well as it did, despite the tragedy of two lives being lost, is that it wasn’t that big of an earthquake, and we were able to handle it with the resources we had,” he said.
In its assessment of the earthquake response, the Federal Emergency Management Agency noted that the response to the San Simeon Earthquake by various agencies — local, county, state, federal and volunteer — was a “textbook example of how a large, complex, multi-jurisdiction emergency can be managed in an efficient, effective manner.”
Alsop acknowledged, however, that the response was not perfect.
The county could have done a better job with its own assessment and providing detailed documentation of the disaster, which is needed to justify state and federal assistance.
Another lesson was that public communication needed to be improved. It took a few hours before solid information was disseminated to the public, which is “a long time in a disaster,” he said.
“At that time, we were getting calls from around the world, and instead of proactively putting out local information, we reacted,” Alsop said. “We dropped the ball on that one, and that will never happen again.”
Community united
Supervisor Frank Mecham, then mayor of Paso Robles, said he believes the county has become better and stronger because of the experience. At the time of the earthquake, Mecham was in his office on 12th Street and thought initially that the shaking was a gas explosion. When it stopped, he took off for downtown and saw the decimated Acorn Building and crushed vehicles.
Despite the chaotic scene, Mecham was impressed by how much others were willing to give of themselves.
“The community knew it had to come together and help each other, and they did,” he said.
Although people have become more aware of the potential for disaster, Mecham said he fears that short memories will lead to complacency, and he is now working with Sheriff Ian Parkinson on a task force to make San Luis Obispo the most emergency-prepared county in the nation.
The goal of the public awareness campaign is to encourage residents to have plans and disaster kits in place in the event of a disaster.
“I’ve said it before,” he said. “We live in earthquake country, and it’s not a question of if, but when.”
See more photos of the aftermath
Tribune reporters and photographers were on hand to document the years following the quake and its cleanup. Here’s a look at the aftermath:
