Valley residents rattled by 6.4 earthquake
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake was felt throughout Southern California Thursday morning, shaking up those celebrating Fourth of July here in the valley.
The quake struck just after 10:30 a.m., with the epicenter in the Mojave Desert near the town of Ridgecrest. It was the strongest recorded earthquake in the area since a 7.1 quake in 1999.
In a video sent to News Channel 3 by a viewer, one woman was heard narrating the waves of water seen in her pool. “We just had an earthquake that sent our pool splashing overboard… It’s still sloshing. Wow!”
The earthquake caught many by surprise. “I never felt nothing like it before and I was just thinking, ‘Lord, I hope there’s no sinkhole under us,” said Valerie Lott, visiting the valley from South Carolina.
Hanging lamps and chandeliers were sent swinging. “I looked at my lamp at the top and it started shaking really, really bad, and I’m like, ‘Oh no, this is an earthquake,” said Conseulo Zepeda, a Thousand Palms resident.
The shaking was felt at home and on the roads. “My car was rocking side to side and I looked at my daughter and said, ‘Are you feeling that? My car is shaking — it’s not even windy out!'” said Nina Galanti, visiting Palm Desert.
“The actual street light itself was kind of moving and I was like, ‘Oh wow, maybe something is going on,'” said Galanti’s daughter Catherine.
Some people reported having vertigo from the shaking, nauseated by the rolling waves.
And for others, the earthquake served as a real life reminder on emergency readiness.
“I would like to think that I’m prepared and ready, but who is to say who really is?” said David Baker. “You never know until it really happens.”
“I just know to get under a table but I can’t walk too well,” said 93-year-old Erma Hipp. “If I get under a table, I can’t get up! … Honey, at my age, we don’t worry about anything.”
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