How Northern Californians survived the earthquake and tsunami warning

Items flew off shelves, tsunami warnings blared on cellphones and some people struggled to stay on their feet as a magnitude 7 earthquake struck northern California on Thursday.

“I have chimneys flying forward,” said Olivia Cobian, the innkeeper at the Gingerbread Mansion, a bed and breakfast in the historic town of Ferndale, as sirens blared in the background Thursday morning. “It’s crazy.”

Their building, built in 1895, “looked like a war zone” after the tremors stopped.

“Claw tubs that were lifted off their mounts and tipped over,” she said. “This is crazy.”

The quake struck in the Pacific Ocean, about 70 miles southwest of Eureka, and shook most of California’s northern coast. And as the tremors subsided, tsunami warnings sounded on cellphones and local officials feared the powerful quake could trigger a second threat.

The San Francisco Zoo was evacuated and closed due to the tsunami warning, and the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District temporarily shut down the underwater Transbay subway. Around midday, the agency said on social media that it had resumed normal operations but that passengers should expect delays.

In San Francisco, firefighters searched beaches and ordered people to evacuate, while dozens of people gathered on the shore to watch the waves roll in. A man was seen watching the crashing waves with his dog, while a lone surfer stayed out in the water taking advantage of the big swell.

Tsunami evacuation orders and warnings have been issued for residents along the coast in West Berkeley, coastal Mendocino County and Pinole. Before noon, the US tsunami warning center lifted the alarm and informed residents that there was no tsunami threat after all.

“It was a big earthquake,” said Kaitlin Graves, an employee at the Petrolia General Store about 50 miles south of Eureka. “There was a lot of ups and downs.”

Items were thrown from shelves and glass items shattered on the floor, she said.

“It felt like the dizzy feeling you get when you’re in an elevator,” she said.

In Manila Township, five miles north of Eureka, Jennifer Savage, who works at the Surfrider Foundation, said Pacific Gas & Electric workers were high in the air working on power lines when the lines began to sway during the quake. After the shaking stopped, the workers climbed down and drove away safely.

She said the tsunami evacuation warnings caused confusion among neighbors, who wondered what exactly they should do.

“People are pretty freaked out,” she said.

Renee Chappelle, a 77-year-old Eureka native, said she has experienced five earthquakes of magnitude 7 or stronger.

“Earthquakes are pretty common here in Humboldt County,” said Chappelle, the innkeeper of the Hydrangea Inn, built by her great-aunt in the 1930s.

The house was built from redwood and still has its original studs, so its sturdiness meant it suffered no damage in the quake, Chappelle said. It wasn’t the strongest earthquake she’d ever experienced, she said, but it felt like it was the longest.

“I’m as close to land as I can get,” she added. “I’m on the coast.”

Julie Symons and her husband discovered that the earthquake caused a small leak in their business, Mitchell Grove, a wedding venue in Eureka.

The quake caused the building to shake back and forth, and a plumber is already tending to the leak.

“It was a big earthquake,” she said. “This was the largest earthquake in Mitchell Grove since we got here in 2013.”

Residents in Petrolia, near the quake’s epicenter, reported shaking so severe they found it difficult to stand.

No major damage or injuries had been reported as of Thursday afternoon, but the magnitude of the quake and the series of alarms were a stark reminder of the possibility of a devastating earthquake in California.

Rex Bohn, supervisor of Humboldt County, whose district includes the earthquake zone, said no major damage had been reported so far.

“I just spoke to one of our local hospital providers … and they seem to be doing well,” he said. “It’s a mess. There’s a lot of stuff off the shelves.”

Humboldt Bay Fire crews initially received reports of a magnitude 6.0 earthquake at 10:44 a.m. about 45 miles southwest of Eureka, but it was upgraded to 7.0 shortly thereafter. The earthquake was followed by several aftershocks.

“It was a sudden jolt and it started rolling, that’s what I hear from people at the epicenter,” Bohn said.

About 200 miles southeast in Cobb Township, “the chandeliers in the dining room were shaking a little,” said Armond Urbano, who runs the pro shop there. “But that was the extent of it.”

Some players didn’t feel it at all, he said.

The quake also appeared to cause little damage in Ferndale, about 20 miles south of Eureka. At Valley Grocery, an employee who declined to identify herself said the quake knocked products off the shelves but there was no major damage.

Caroline Titus, former editor and publisher of Ferndale Enterprise, posted on the social media site

“Not a single pane of glass outside. Unbelievable,” she wrote on

In a telephone interview, Ferndale Police Chief Ron Sligh said there was no serious structural damage in the city. He said two water pipes were broken but they were being repaired.

He said there were also some power outages in the city, but they only lasted a few minutes. He said schools had canceled classes for the day.

“We came out of it okay,” Sligh said.