Quake Jolts Central Orange County : Only a Few Injured, but Damage and Fear Were Widespread

A sharp and sudden earthquake centered under Newport Beach rattled central Orange County at 1:07 p.m. Friday, cracking buildings, closing schools and frightening even seasoned Southern Californians by the severity of its shaking.

Five people sought treatment at hospitals for minor injuries, mainly from falling objects, authorities said.

Seismologists at Caltech said the quake registered a magnitude of 4.6--far less than the 5.9 Whittier quake in 1987 and the 5.0 quake last December at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

But Friday’s jolt came without the familiar rumbling overture and did its work in an estimated 10 seconds.

The quake, which came 7 days into statewide Earthquake Preparedness Month, was felt from Santa Monica to San Diego and east into San Bernardino County, but it seemed to concentrate its force in a broad circle around Newport Beach.

Residents as near as the Tustin Hills and Mission Viejo reported only slight shaking. In Garden Grove, only 12 miles from the epicenter, officials at the all-glass Crystal Cathedral said not one of its more than 10,000 panes were cracked.

A Caltech spokesman said the quake was caused by slippage about 7 miles under West Newport in an area generally bounded by Newport Boulevard, West Coast Highway and the beach from 30th to 45th streets.

It occurred on the Newport-Inglewood Fault, which was blamed for the 1933 Long Beach earthquake that killed 127 people.

Phil Tozer, president of the Balboa Pavilion Co. located about 2 miles from the quake’s epicenter, said he has experienced every Southern California earthquake during the past 68 years, including the 1933 Long Beach quake.

“None of them felt like this. It was like a bomb going off,” Tozer said.

“It felt like the helicopter crashed on the pad upstairs on the roof,” said Newport Beach Police Officer Bob Oakley. “It was over so quickly I didn’t relate it immediately to an earthquake.”

Cracks appeared in some buildings, among them the Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana, where the district attorney’s office sent its employees home early, and in the nearby county Hall of Administration, where daylight could be seen through a fissure in the office of County Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez.

Dived Under Desks

Ceiling tiles and metal rods falling in the courthouse law library sent lawyers diving under desks and forced an early closure.

Asbestos exposed by fallen ceiling tiles at Corona del Mar High School prompted administrators to send students home early, too.

And while markets and homes reported smashed merchandise and toppled bookshelves, it appeared that the quake had caused no major damage. The county’s Emergency Operations Center remained closed because county officials determined that “the damage was not serious,” said Christine Boyd, manager of the county’s Emergency Management Division.

The quake prompted officials at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station just south of San Clemente to declare an “unusual event,” the lowest of four emergency classifications. The one nuclear reactor that was operating was not shut down, officials said.

“It’s just declared as a routine precautionary measure,” said Becky Sordelet of Southern California Edison, which operates the plant. “There has been no release of radiation, no damage to the public or our employees.”

Phone System Glitches

Telephone calls overwhelmed the local Pacific Bell network shortly after the quake, causing telephone facilities in the Irvine-Newport Beach-Costa Mesa area to temporarily shut down, Bell spokeswoman Linda Bonniksen said.

“Everyone with a telephone is picking it up,” she said. “It happens every time we have an earthquake. The system is not designed for everyone to get on the phone at the same time.”

Service quickly returned to normal, Bonniksen said.

Neither airport nor highway facilities were damaged, authorities reported.

After an inspection of county buildings in Santa Ana, inspectors reported “no major structural damage,” according to Charles Neiderman, county director of facilities.

“All in all, we came out pretty good,” Neiderman said. “Considering the punch of the quake, we were lucky. Most of the damage is superficial--ceiling ducts dislodged, interior walls cracked, tiles broken.”

Disneyland shut down a few rides briefly “as a matter of routine emergency procedure,” a spokesman said.

Abe Hammad at the Balboa Market in Newport Beach lost “50 or 60 bottles of booze and some groceries” that fell from his shelves.

And Bill Caouette, owner of the Balboa Pavilion, lost “a few bottles, the big bay window in the banquet room and a section of ceiling upstairs.” He was also losing a little hair trying to get it all repaired “because we have banquets scheduled this evening.”

Damage to the Psyche

But for most, the damage was to their dispositions.

“The biggest effect here was shattered nerves,” said UC Irvine Acting Vice Chancellor William Parker, who was was in his fifth-floor office when the quake hit.

“I grew up in California so I don’t get upset about these things,” said Cheri Sohn, a legal secretary working in an eighth-floor office in Santa Ana.

But, she said, “I felt a big jolt, and I said, ‘Uh oh, this is real.’ I got under the desk.”

At RJ’s the Rib Joint in Newport Beach, Dru Murphy, 23, was eating his lunch when the temblor struck and paid it little notice. He said he tried to reassure others who were diving under tables, but he was cut short when a display case fell on him, causing minor head and neck injuries.

Murphy was one of four persons treated for minor injuries at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, according to a spokeswoman. Amy Daylida, 27, a bartender at the Blue Beet Cafe in Newport Beach, was cut on the leg by a shattering beer bottle. A 55-year-old Newport Beach woman suffered lacerations when struck on the head by a falling object, and a 53-year-old woman complained of chest pains, the hospital spokeswoman said.

At UCI Medical Center in Orange, Juana Hernandez, 61, of Santa Ana also complained of chest pains after being struck by a falling light fixture, a spokeswoman said.

Evacuation at OCC

Students in the Orange Coast College Library were evacuated after the jolt knocked books from the shelves. In other locations, people reported being stuck in elevators for up to 10 minutes and some were knocked from stools and chairs.

Fallen ceiling tiles and a check for plumbing leaks at The Times Orange County Edition pressroom in Costa Mesa led to delays in publication for up to 2 hours, newspaper officials said.

Two women milling in the crowd outside the Atrium, a 10-story office building in Irvine, said they had been discussing how the dry, hot spell was “prime earthquake weather” when the temblor struck.

At Caltech, seismologist Riley Geary said he has heard about so-called “earthquake weather” for years.

“Weather had absolutely nothing to do with it,” Geary said. “Whenever there’s an unusual weather condition and an earthquake occurs, people always associate it with the weather condition.”

He said most earthquakes occur during normal weather conditions. “As far as we’re aware, there is no conceivable relation,” Geary said.

Contributing to Times coverage of Friday’s earthquake were staff writers Sherry Angel, Richard Beene, Leslie Berkman, Jim Carlton, Steven R. Churm, Michael Cicchese, Jean Davidson, Andrea Ford, George Frank, James Gomez, James Granelli, Jan Herman, Kimberly L. Jackson, Lonn Johnston, Jack Jones, Eric Lichtblau, Linda Roach Monroe, Maria Newman, David Olmos, Jeffrey A. Perlman, Mark I. Pinsky, Lucille Renwick, Carla Rivera, Bob Schwartz, Bob Secter, George Bundy Smith, Lynn Smith and Rick VanderKnyff.