6.9 Quake Rocks N. California Coast : Destruction: Dozens of Victorian homes are wrenched off foundations. At least 35 people are injured. Worst damage is in Ferndale, which was holding a festival.

A powerful earthquake rocked California’s remote North Coast on Saturday, knocking brick facades off buildings, sparking fires that destroyed several businesses and two post offices, and sending at least 35 people to hospitals with cuts, broken bones and chest pains.

The magnitude 6.9 quake began its long rumble through Humboldt County at 11:06 a.m. and was centered in a rural area about 35 miles south of Eureka, seismologists said. Shock waves were felt 260 miles away in San Francisco and in parts of Oregon and Nevada.

Hardest hit was Ferndale, a picturesque dairy town and artist colony of 1,700 that is home to some of California’s best-preserved Victorian homes. The community was hosting its first “Best of the West Fest,” and the sidewalks and quaint shops were teeming with celebrants in Old West garb when the violent shaking began.

“It was one enormous pow--a bang--and then it just kept going and going,” said Gary Edgemon, 41, who owns a Ferndale butcher shop. “When the faces of the buildings fall off and windows start falling out, you know it’s something else.”

Pat Tomasini was in the kitchen of her blue, two-story Victorian when the temblor struck.

“I heard the door pop, then the windows popped, then the dishes came flying out of the cupboards,” Tomasini said. “I tried to run out the back door, but there was no porch there, so my husband took me out the kitchen window.”

Her son, Wayne, was out in the yard at the time: “I thought I was history,” he said.

In downtown Ferndale, people were knocked screaming to the pavement by violent tremors that shattered large storefront windows on Main Street. Two people were injured and two cars were flattened when the red brick facade of Valley Grocery--housed in one of Ferndale’s numerous turn-of-the-century buildings--crashed down.

At least two dozen of the town’s restored Victorian homes--many of which house bed and breakfast inns and were full of guests Saturday--were thrown off their foundations. The jolt also toppled chimneys and ripped porches and pillars from many historic homes.

Officials temporarily closed the main road into Ferndale, and water, telephone and power service were unavailable to many residents throughout the region for much of the day.

Shortly after the quake, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors declared a state of emergency. Authorities urged people to stay in their homes, check their gas lines and gather emergency supplies to prepare for aftershocks, which continued through the day.

The stretch of coast near Eureka is one of the most seismically active regions of California, a spot where three tectonic plates--the Pacific, the North American and the Gorda--intersect. During the last two decades, at least 10 strong quakes have rattled residents of the region. Saturday’s temblor was the fourth measuring magnitude 6.5 or greater to strike the North Coast since 1980.

On a dairy farm less than two miles from downtown Ferndale, evidence of what the shifting Earth had wrought was visible in a serene cow pasture, where Ida Toste spotted a one-foot-wide crack stretching for 100 feet across her son’s farm. Not far from the fissure, Toste said, she saw “big patches of mud oozing up” from the ground.

“I’ve lived here all my life and never saw anything like this,” Toste said in wonderment. “It’s really an act of God.”

The Ferndale quake came three days after a 6.1 temblor rolled through remote desert communities of southeastern California. Seismologists said the two events were not related.

In October, 1989, California’s most deadly recent temblor--the Loma Prieta quake--struck the Bay Area, killing 67 people and causing $7 billion in damage. That quake was initially measured at magnitude 6.9--like Saturday’s--but was revised to a magnitude 7.1 quake.

While Ferndale endured the brunt of Saturday’s losses, there were reports of damage from throughout Humboldt County, a scenic, isolated region best known for its ancient redwood groves and struggling logging industry.

In Petrolia, a rustic sheep ranching town of 300 not far from the epicenter, at least 20 homes were pushed from their foundations by the tremors. In the heart of town, a fire destroyed the Petrolia General Store, which housed the settlement’s post office and gas station. The loss leaves residents an hour’s drive from the nearest services.

“This store gave us everything we needed,” said firefighter Lacief Daniels. “This is a very severe loss to the community.”

Ironically, the old wooden general store stood next door to the fire station. But when Petrolia’s volunteer firefighters arrived, they found that the station door was jammed. By the time they could get their equipment out, the building was destroyed.

A spokesman for the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department said the town of Loleta also lost its post office and a store, and in Fortuna, the downtown business district was described as “a disaster area” by resident Diana Lewis.

In Rio Dell, plywood covered broken windows in storefronts and police enforced a Saturday night curfew in an effort to prevent looting.

Officials in Eureka--the largest city in Humboldt County--said supermarkets and the Bayshore Mall were closed because of toppled shelves and other damage.

California 254, a popular route through towering redwoods that is known as the Avenue of the Giants, was closed because of a downed power line and three landslides. Rocks also blocked railroad tracks used to transport lumber near Rio Dell.

At the Humboldt County Fairgrounds, the Red Cross set up shelters for victims. But all of the homeless appeared to have found shelter with friends and relatives Saturday night.

Of the 35 people injured in the quake, 11 were reported hospitalized. A spokesman for Redwood Memorial Hospital in Fortuna said the injured mostly suffered bruises and cuts from falling debris, but some had chest pains and broken bones.

By afternoon Saturday, dazed residents of Ferndale were boarding up businesses, sweeping sidewalks and reflecting glumly on the wounds the quake inflicted on the town.

Set in the fertile Eel River Valley, Ferndale was founded in 1852 by Danish dairy farmers. Today, descendants of those first families coexist with artists, innkeepers and retirees in a town designated as a State Historic Landmark. There are no parking meters, traffic lights or postal delivery, and residents like it that way.

At dusk, about 150 residents met on Main Street to discuss the quake and its aftermath. Assisting them were structural engineers and others attending the California Preservation Conference, which by coincidence had been under way in Eureka when the earthquake struck.

“I left L.A. in ’71 because I didn’t want any more of the damned earthquakes,” said Sandra Mesman, owner of Golden Gait Mercantile on Main Street. “They can talk about being prepared, but when it’s this size, there’s no preparation.”

Ferndale Police Chief Wayne Sedam estimated that damages will exceed $2.5 million, and noted that 80 people had been forced from their homes. Edgemon, the butcher, was born and raised in Ferndale and believes that the quake was “a major blow and catastrophe” for Ferndale.

But some were more optimistic. Joe Koches, a volunteer firefighter who helped organize Saturday’s spoiled festival, was confident that the quake will not dilute Ferndale’s civic spirit.

“This is a small town that will rebuild,” he said.

Feldman reported from Ferndale, Warren from Los Angeles. Times staff writers John Hurst and Virginia Ellis and correspondent Marie Gravelle also reported from Humboldt County.