Reporting from Sacramento — Last week’s back-to-back earthquakes hit the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake with such violent force that they damaged the base’s elementary school and created the largest surface chasms caused by the recent temblors in Southern California’s high desert area, according to state officials.
Though there was not widespread destruction in areas near the quakes’ epicenters, officials with the state Seismic Safety Commission said at a teleconference in Sacramento on Thursday that additional structural damage to building interiors in the nearby city of Ridgecrest is being discovered, including collapsed roofs.
Preliminary reports indicate that the largest surface ruptures caused by the magnitude 6.4 earthquake on July 4 and magnitude 7.1 temblor on July 5 occurred at the naval base, according to commission Chairman Mike Gardner. The naval facility remains open to essential personnel only, though one of the base’s squadrons has resumed normal flight operations, according to the station’s Facebook page.
“Because of the nature of the base and the activity that occurs there, there is really very limited public information about impacts and recovery,” said Gardner, who is also a Riverside City Council member.
Richmond Elementary School, which is on the naval base, “took the biggest hit” of all the public schools in the Ridgecrest area, said Jim Hackett of the Division of the State Architect, the agency that inspected the campuses. Along with a water main break, inspectors found signs of “heaving and cracking” in concrete walkways, leading them to recommend that a more detailed damage assessment be conducted, he said.
After the earthquakes, most of the personnel on the 1.2-million-acre naval base were evacuated to Naval Base Ventura County.
Officials at the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake could not be reached for comment, but an announcement on the base’s Facebook page said its family housing facilities are expected to reopen as early as Monday.
The Seismic Safety Commission investigates earthquakes, including resulting damage and government response, and advises the governor and state Legislature on policies to reduce risksarthquakes. The 15-member board includes representatives from state agencies and local governments as well as members with expertise in seismology and geology.
Commissioner Ivan Wong, a seismologist with Lettis Consultants International in Northern California, said his company has studied the earthquake risks and geology at the naval station and has been granted access to the base to assess how it was affected geologically by the earthquakes.
“The area around Ridgecrest is just literally crawling with faults,” Wong said at Thursday’s briefing.
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Dan Tolbert, 62, spends time with his dogs as he and his wife, Ronnie, 60, prepare to bed down for the night on a pair of mattresses in front of their earthquake-damaged home in Trona on July 10. Their night was interrupted when a scorpion crawled on their mattresses and they ended up spending the night in their truck. “If we keep feeling tremors tomorrow we’ll be out here again,” Ronnie said.
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Karen Byrd, 39, collects photo frames knocked off the wall at her home in Trona, Calif.
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Ronnie Tolbert, left, delivers food to Robert VanHorn, 81, almost a week after a 7.1 earthquake near Trona.
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Benny Eldridge, 76, looks at a quake-damaged room in his Trona home, which he helped build with his father-in-law in 1961. The house has been red-tagged.
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Benny Eldridge, 76, and his wife, Anna Sue, 75, sit in front of their damaged home in Trona.
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Joyce Harrison Moore, 72, looks out from her damaged home almost a week after a pair of earthquakes battered Trona. “This town will either die or get back on its feet,” Moore said.
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Ronnie Tolbert stands beside her damaged fireplace.
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Valerie Helton, 60, facing the camera, receives a hug of support from Ronnie Tolbert. Helton and her daughter Jessica Sizemore Helton, left, have refused to leave their home since last week’s quakes. “This is all I have,” said Sizemore Helton.
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Ralph “Zeb” Haleman, 67, carries cases of water home Sunday in Trona, Calif., where residents were still without water and electricity was spotty after last week’s quakes.
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Kay Byrd, 64, gives herself an insulin shot. Byrd and her family are camping outside in Trona, Calif., wary of returning home after major earthquakes.
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Brooke Thompson, 8, plays on the sleeping bag that her family slept in after a pair of major earthquakes drove them out of their home in Trona, Calif.
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The Byrd family has breakfast next to where they spent the night under a salt cedar tree, afraid to return to their Trona, Calif., home of 21 years after major earthquakes.
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Ronnie Tolbert, left, and her husband, Danny, sleep on mattresses in the front yard of their Trona home, which was damaged in a 7.1 magnitude earthquake.
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The Horta family sleeps in the back of their pickup truck in a fire station parking lot in Trona as the sun rises hours after being forced from their home by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake.
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Kathy Vander Housen, 76 hugs her friend Claire Barker, 76, after Barker told her that she had found her two cats. Vander Housen’s mobile home in Trona had been yellow-tagged by county inspectors, but she did not want to leave without the cats, which had been hiding since the earthquake
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Buckled asphalt courses through a parking lot near Trona Rd. in Argus.
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Sammy Chute cuddles Gerard as her family in Trona prepares to evacuate to Ridgecrest, abandoning their home that was knocked off its foundation during a 7.1 earthquake.
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Charles Ware, 68, in his Trona front yard the morning after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake severely damaged his home. Ware said he invested all he had into this house two years ago, doesn’t have earthquake insurance and is afraid he may not be able to rebuild. He was on the phone with his brother in San Diego when the quake hit. “I got to ride it out with my brother,” he said.
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A customer rummages for a six-pack of beer at a damaged Shell food mart in Trona the day after a 7.1 earthquake.
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Hundreds of residents of Ridgecrest, Calif., and surrounding communities attend a town hall meeting at Kerr McGee Community Center about the response to recent major earthquakes.
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Christian Fellowship of Trona congregants pray after holding a quick meeting on how to help other community members.
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Kern County firemen tackle a fire on Saturday morning at Town and Country Mobile Home Park in Ridgcrest.
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Jamie L. Acevedo sits outside her damaged Trona home, waiting to evacuate to Ridgecrest the morning after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake knocked her home off its foundation.
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Gas station owner Roger Sandoval faces the possibility of having to shut his Trona business after a 7.1 earthquake apparently damaged the supply tanks near the pumps.
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Chavela Padilla, left, an emergency response team volunteer, walks with Ronnie Tolbert amid quake-toppled items in Tobert’s Trona home. The damage occurred in a 7.1 temblor hours earlier.
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Chavela Padilla, a Trona emergency response team volunteer, enters her car after checking on a neighbor as her two young boys, Joey, 8, right, and Jimmy, 5, sleep in the back seat at close to 3 a.m. The boys were too scared to be home after experiencing a 7.1 earthquake hours earlier.
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Chavela Padilla, right, an emergency response team member walks with Ronnie Tolbert amid quake-toppled items in Tolbert’s Trona home.
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Brothers Joey, 8, right, and Jimmy Raya, 5, sleep in the back seat of their mother’s car in the parking lot of San Bernardino County Fire Station 57 in Trona after their home was damaged in a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hours earlier.
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Chavela Padilla, a Trona emergcency response team volunteer, assists her neighbor Alicia Marines, 72, who was injured while trying to escape her home during a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. Marines was evacuated to the local fire station. James Raya, Padilla’s husband and also a volunteer, looks on.
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Chavela Padilla, a Trona emergency response team volunteer, stands in the bloody footprints left by homeowner Alicia Marines, 72, who was injured during a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. Padilla volunteered to check on Marines’ residence and collect some fresh clothes.
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Ronnie Tolbert sorts through toppled belongings in her Trona home, damaged in a 7.1 magnitude earthquake hours earlier.
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The aftermath of Friday’s earthquake at a Ridgecrest liquor store.
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Work on Route 178 between Trona and Ridgecrest.
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Workers fill large holes left in Highway 178 between Trona and Ridgecrest by Friday night’s 7.1 earthquake.
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Highway workers repair roadway near Ridgecrest on Saturday morning.
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Police and emergency services respond to a fire at a building on Highway 178.
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Firefighters respond to a fire at a building on Highway 178 after Friday night’s earthquake near Ridgecrest.
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In Ridgecrest, Davia Speed and Peyton Speed, holding 1-month-old Lillian, get into their car after Friday night’s 7.1 earthquake.
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Dawn Inscore leaves her apartment on Ridgecrest Boulevard with her child after the Friday night earthquake. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
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Carmen Rivera, 65, walks her dog Ash past a dislodged home in Torusdale Estates mobile home park in Ridgecrest. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
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Zoe Pineda, 7, helps clean up the library in Ridgecrest after the Fourth of July quake. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
Commissioner H. Kit Miyamoto, chief executive and president of earthquake structural engineering company Miyamoto International, said his company sent a team to inspect buildings in Ridgecrest after the earthquakes.
While most homes and buildings survived with minimal damage, the violent quakes caused structural problems that were hard to see from the street, he said. One grocery story had a roof so damaged that it appeared to be a “total loss,” Miyamoto said.
Fred Turner, the commission’s structural engineer, said building assessment teams have found three buildings in Ridgecrest with collapsed interior roofs that appeared undamaged from the outside. As a result, emergency responders have been advised to place a greater emphasis on interior inspections.
The commission’s senior engineering geologist, Bob Anderson, told members that the fault ruptures that caused the quakes are still being assessed.
An even bigger quake may be possible along the fault line at some point. Earlier this week, scientists said the probability of another earthquake of magnitude 7 or greater resulting from the July 5 quake was less than 1%.
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phil.willon@latimes.com
Twitter: @philwillon
