Broken bottles, shattered glass and displaced furniture jolted
residents and merchants in northern San Benito County from their
routines Tuesday afternoon after a 4.3-magnitude earthquake rocked
the area.
Broken bottles, shattered glass and displaced furniture jolted residents and merchants in northern San Benito County from their routines Tuesday afternoon after a 4.3-magnitude earthquake rocked the area.
The 2:29 p.m. earthquake was centered about three miles south of Hollister along the Paicines Fault at a depth of about 5.3 miles, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
“It was classified as a light earthquake with no serious damage reported,” said Susan Garcia, a public information officer with the USGS in Menlo Park.
The earthquake was the strongest to hit the area since a 4.9-magnitude temblor May 13, which was centered three miles southwest of Gilroy.
The USGS reported one aftershock, a magnitude 2.0 rumble at 6:33 p.m.
A total of 903 people reported the quake to the USGS Menlo Park station by 3:15 p.m. It was apparently felt as far away as San Francisco, Fresno and Pittsburg in the northern East Bay. One report to the USGS came from Sacramento.
The quake caught visitors such as Darlene Reece of Antioch off-guard.
“I was standing here waiting for my mother to pay for my stamps,” said Reece, who was shopping in Hop’s Hallmark store at San Benito and Sixth streets when the earthquake struck.
“When it hit, it felt like I almost went up in the air. I held onto my mom,” Reece said. “But it was very, very loud.”
Eddie Falconi, an employee at Enterprise Electric on San Benito Street, was also stunned by the quake’s sudden violence.
“Brrrr – it just struck fast, and stopped suddenly, too,” Falconi said.
Judy Rider, director of the Methodist Church Preschool, said the shake gave the 4- and 5-year-old students a chance to put to use the skills they learned in earthquake drills at the preschool.
“We got a pretty good shake, but the kids all knew what to do: They got under the tables,” Rider said. “They did fine.”
The temblor, which erupted with a sudden jolt that slammed against the foundation of several buildings, caused a relatively minor amount of damage around town.
Most of the damage was centered in local stores.
An employee at Majestic Beauty Supply in the Nob Hill shopping center said the earthquake sent bottles tumbling across the store. An hour and a half after the quake, employees at the store were still cleaning up the mess.
Nob Hill Foods employees also had some clean-up to do but the store remained open, manager Randy Upchurch said.
“We lost a few jars off the shelves – nothing too bad,” he said. “We had a pretty good jolt, but we never had to shut the doors.”
Upchurch said it was business as usual after employees checked the building for damage and cleaned up a few spills.
At Target on Airline Highway, manager Scott Cunningham said the store suffered a small crack to an inside wall and a number of ceiling tiles fell to the store floor. He said a building service employee will repair the damage today.
On the other side of town, managers at Albertson’s said they had a similar experience with a few items falling off shelves and out of bins.
No one was injured at Hazel Hawkins Hospital, which was in the process of transferring patients from Southside Convalescent Hospital to the new Mabie Skilled Nursing Facility. The hospitals sustained no damage, Hazel Hawkins spokesperson Frankie Munoz said.
The quake rattled some nerves as well as windows at Ridgemark, the nearest residential area to the quake’s epicenter.
“We had some broken glasses and some other minor damage, but we were fortunate that nothing serious happened,” Ridgemark Security Chief Carlos Ortiz said.
Businessman Phil Fortino said the quake disrupted his home furnishings store as it shook loose small merchandise and several ceiling light panels called parabolic diffusers.
“Being a furniture store, we had a lot of little knick-knacks on display – things like plates and wine glasses that were knocked over, and a couple of coffee tables were damaged,” Fortino said. “But our warehouse was fine. We were back to normal pretty fast.”
The earthquake was the first hard shaker for Ladd Lane Elementary School, Principal Bob Hammond said.
The administration office is made of thick concrete and steel, Hammond said, so it wasn’t felt much at the school, which sustained no damage, he said.
“I was really amazed. Everybody was real calm,” Hammond said.
After students were evacuated to a safe place, a team of about five staff members checked the classrooms to make sure it was safe to go back, Hammond said.
Hollister Police said the earthquake set off a number of alarms at local businesses, which caused some temporary confusion. But no serious damage or life-threatening situations resulted from the quake, police said.
Staff writers Michelle Hatfield and Kollin Kosmicki contributed to this report.
