Woman remembers Landers earthquake as ‘scariest thing’ ever experienced
It was June 28, 1992 when the largest earthquake to hit Southern California in 40 years rattled the High Desert.
KESQ News Channel 3 and CBS Local 2’s Katie Widner is looking back at the Landers earthquake, 25 years after the 7.3 magnitude quake struck six miles north of Yucca Valley, centering in on the town of Landers.
Three people died, two from heart attacks and one little boy. The little boy died after bricks from fireplace fell on top of him.
Given the size of the earthquake, it caused relatively little damage, according to the Southern California Earthquake Data Center. But as we’re looking back at the earthquake, residents in the High Desert are telling us their stories from that day, as one woman put it, “The scariest thing” she’s ever experienced.
Pamela Boggs, Lived in Yucca Valley during Landers Earthquake.
“The scary part was I could see the corner of the bedroom just going, like the house was going to collapse on us,” Boggs said. “And then when we did get out, it was like a dust bowl, a giant dust bowl because it shook us like a bag of flower.”
Boggs was without water for three days, faring better than some closer to the epicenter in nearby Landers.
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Debbie Wilson’s mother lived in Landers during the earthquake.
“It rocked and rolled for quite a while and then there were the aftershocks. They were displaced from their home for 3 months,” Reynolds said.
Yucca Bowl in Yucca Valley had serious damage as part of the roof collapsed that day.
Locals tell us, it took years before people felt secure enough to build again.
The area hardly bares any scars of its brush with disaster, except for a few visitors here and there.
“I see the seismologists over there… they’re checking the soil because that’s the main fault over there,” Wilson said.
Those who live in the area, say they hope they never experience anything like it, ever again.
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