The 1994 Northridge quake was a shock. Here’s why the next one won’t be
LOS ANGELES — Susan Hough remembers the violent shaking that jolted her and millions of other Southern Californians awake just after 4:30 a.m. 30 years ago this week.
“It was like a giant picked up my house and started shaking it back and forth in his fist,” said Hough, a geophysicist for the U.S. Geological Survey. She thought she heard glass breaking in her Pasadena home, “but when the dust settled, there were no broken windows and no broken furniture.”
Many others were not so fortunate. The 6.7 magnitude quake centered in Northridge resulted in more than 9,000 injuries, 60 fatalities and up to $20 billion in property damage, plus $40 billion in economic losses, according to the California Department of Conservation.
Scenes of devastation could be found across the city. A stretch of the 10 Freeway at La Cienega and Washington boulevards collapsed. A three-story Northridge apartment became a crumpled heap. Ruptured gas lines and propane tanks sent fiery balls bursting through asphalt roads in a mobile home park in the San Fernando Valley.
Communities were left without power, and the National Guard mobilized to prevent
