Epicenter Moves to Reseda, Name Stays in Northridge

The name is not going to change, scientists at Caltech and the U.S. Geological Survey insisted Tuesday. It will go down in history as the Northridge earthquake.

But the latest epicenter, based on at least the sixth set of coordinates that scientists have issued since Jan. 17, is actually in Reseda, a little more than a quarter of a mile outside the Northridge boundary.

Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson, who with colleague Kate Hutton plots such things, cautioned that positioning could still change, depending on new seismographic evidence and continued study of aftershocks.

Hauksson said being exact is difficult with scattered seismographic instrumentation, and further study may move the epicenter back under Northridge.

But, officially for now, the “best epicenter” issued by Caltech is at 34 degrees 12.68 minutes north and 118 degrees 32.25 minutes west.

Caltech does not list street locations, but Jim Kamenick, database manager for Area Location Systems Inc. in Chatsworth, plotted those coordinates and put the epicenter in the middle of a block bounded by Reseda Boulevard on the east, Elkwood Street on the south, Yolanda Avenue on the west and Arminta Street on the north.

“The main point is that most of the fault surface is beneath Northridge,” Hauksson said Tuesday.

Jim Mori, director of the Geological Survey’s Pasadena field office, said: “The quake is not a point. It represents a whole area, roughly 10 miles by eight miles, and Northridge is more representative of the area the fault broke.”

But as critics asserted and the scientists acknowledged, naming an earthquake can involve sometimes emotional issues beyond just pinpointing an epicenter.

Christine M. Rodrigue, a geography professor at Cal State Chico, has contended that Caltech officials gravitated toward an “upscale community” in Northridge, ignoring Reseda, which is poorer and more working class.

Consequently, she suggested, Northridge may do far better than Reseda in receiving emergency funding and resources for post-quake recovery.

Rodrigue, who has a home in Reseda, was there the morning of the earthquake.

Caltech officials deny such considerations have been part of their motivations, and Hauksson and Mori characterized the decision on naming the quake as informal.

Initially, Mori said, the inclination of the small group of Caltech and Geological Survey scientists who hold public briefings was to name the event the San Fernando Valley earthquake.

“But we had already had a San Fernando quake in 1971, and that might have led to confusion,” Mori said. “Northridge seemed to us to be the closest area to this earthquake, so we named it that.”

Later in the day, state authorities started using Northridge earthquake too.

In Reseda, some residents have been pushing to have the quake named the Reseda quake. But Hauksson said he and the other scientists have difficulty understanding that notion.

“We could have named the Big Bear aftershock to the Landers earthquake (in 1992) the Sugarloaf Mountain quake because it was actually closer to that geographic feature,” Hauksson said. “But we decided to name it Big Bear, and I’m afraid as a result there was considerable adverse economic impact that winter on the ski resorts.”

In the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey office in Menlo Park purposely avoided naming it after a city in order to lessen the negative economic impact, Hauksson said.

Despite such reasoning, there appears to be some resentment over the quake’s name in Reseda.

Realtors, politicians and local newspapers have received complaints that Reseda, the original Hub of the Valley, has been snubbed.

Eric Rose, a deputy to Councilwoman Laura Chick, said the office received a complaint from a constituent worried that Reseda “would be overlooked in the recovery.”

Rose said the man was assured that Reseda would get its fair share of any recovery resources.

Teri Canfield, manager of the Northridge Chamber of Commerce, said that, on balance, she thinks naming the quake after Northridge is “a positive.”

She said the identification with Northridge has brought numerous phone calls. People nationwide wanting to make donations call Northridge to offer items such as plastic sheeting, diapers and tents.

Would she like it to remain the Northridge quake?

“I guess, if there’s no other way to do it, we will make as much positive out of it as we can.”

It is only fair, she added, “because of the tremendous destruction to the Northridge Fashion Center and Cal State Northridge.”

New Starting Point Caltech’s latest coordinates for the epicenter of the Northridge earthquake place it in Reseda. But scientists say further scismographic evidence might lead to another change. And they are sticking with Northridge as the name of the quake.