Little Damage in San Diego From Quake

An earthquake with an epicenter near Palm Springs early Tuesday sent 30-second temblors through San Diego County, but no injuries or major damages were reported.

Many San Diego residents slept through the strongest quake to rock the county in at least seven years. However, some 700 phone calls were made to police in the hour after the 2:21 a.m. quake.

“It was a rolling earthquake, kind of like a waterbed-type movement,” said Thomas Lee of Chula Vista. “It was a little bit different from the choppy ones we usually get. This one was more long and continuous than I’ve heard.”

Caltech scientists reported that the quake measured 6.0 on the Richter scale.

John Anderson, a seismologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said the quake was comparable to the 1980 Mexicali Valley quake, which registered 6.2 on the Richter scale; the 1979 Imperial Valley quake, 6.5, and the 1971 San Fernando quake, 6.5.

He said the Borrego Mountain quake of 1968, measuring 6.5, probably shook San Diego the hardest of any in the last 20 years.

He also said ridge and mountain areas were likely to feel the tremors less than the coast and valleys did.

“If it had been a direct hit, it could have done some damage, but being so far from San Diego, I wouldn’t expect any here,” he said.

Water pipes and dams were apparently unharmed. Max Saska, principal supervisor for the San Diego Water Utilities Department, checked the dams by flashlight in the the early morning hours.

“I’ve been with the department 32 years, and we’ve had shakes stronger than this one and everything was OK, so I had no reason to get too concerned,” he said. “The people that built those dams did a good job.”

There was some minor damage to public buildings. Chambers 27 and 28 in the San Diego County Courthouse sustained about $200 in damage when a dozen acoustic tiles fell from the ceiling. The South County Regional Center on Third Avenue in Chula Vista suffered cosmetic cracks in a third-floor ceiling, but no other buildings were reported damaged.

Ray Miller, chief of operations for county facilities services, said every county building was checked after the courtroom damage was reported.

“All the damage we’ve had has been superficial,” he said. “Some of the older buildings were very strongly constructed, so we are not concerned about those.”

No power failures were reported in San Diego County, and San Diego Gas & Electric provided a power link to help Southern California Edison circumvent a damaged substation six miles east of the quake’s epicenter. Edison channeled about 500 megawatts through SDG&E;’s Southwest Power Link, which runs 280 miles from Phoenix to Bonita and up to the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

“It is helping us out, no question about it,” said Vicram Budhraja, power resource engineering manager for Edison.

The link also spared the county a possible 12-hour power crunch, which could have happened had SDG&E; continued to import power from Edison. “Had we not had the link, it’s quite possible that our customers could have been facing energy shortages,” SDG&E; spokesman Dave Smith said.

As it was, San Diego was largely spared damage or disturbance from the tremor.

As a county sheriff’s deputy described it: “A couple of people called and said some old books had fallen off the shelf. That’s it.”