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The largest of the most recent swarm of earthquakes last week served as a Monday morning wakeup to call to San Ramon resident and Bay Area native Joyce Yee while she watched a “cascade of glass” flow from her kitchen cabinet and shards landed next to her from across the room.
The scene was a particularly chaotic one resulting from the 4.2-magnitude earthquake just after 7 a.m. Feb. 2, which was followed by countless smaller quakes later in the day and week. By the end of the week, more than 100 earthquakes were recorded in San Ramon, 30-plus of which were magnitude 2.5 or greater, according to data from the California Integrated Seismic Network.
The acute period of seismic activity in San Ramon on Feb. 2 – and the associated concerns of his constituents – led San Ramon Mayor Mark Armstrong to issue a letter to residents seeking to quell concerns and highlight the city’s preparedness efforts to contend with earthquakes and other emergencies, alongside county, state and federal agencies, noting that the city is “closely monitoring the situation”.
“Most importantly, we will face this together,” Armstrong wrote. “San Ramon is a resilient community, and we look out for one another.”
The mayor of the normally quiet suburb has had interviews with numerous regional and national news outlets added to his list of responsibilities as reporters from near and far seek answers about the unusually lengthy period of seismic activity in San Ramon since the fall, unexpectedly placing the city in the spotlight from coast to coast.
Armstrong told the Pleasanton Weekly that he felt it was especially important to address the community of the growing city given that new residents might not be familiar with Bay Area earthquakes.
“Many people have not experienced anything like this and while our swarm of earthquakes is relatively minor compared to what could happen with the ‘Big One’, many don’t know what to do,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong added that while he doesn’t expect it to last, he has seen the outpouring of media attention in San Ramon driven by the wave of temblors as an opportunity to educate both residents and the public at large about emergency preparedness.
“My message is basically – I understand our residents are unsettled by the recent swarm of earthquakes, earthquake swarms are not uncommon in our area, our city/region is prepared and you should be too, and there is good information and resources on practical things people can do to personally prepare for disasters or receive training,” Armstrong said.
Even for those who are familiar with earthquakes and the appropriate safety precautions for both big and small shakers, it’s possible for some things to fall through the cracks. Yee learned after 18 years the kitchen cabinet that had led to the dramatic scene in her home Feb. 2 was only hanging on by two screws, neither of which were installed into wall studs.
“Lesson: Get and install those earthquake brackets!” Yee said.
The ongoing wave of earthquakes has also been at the top of mind for Fire Chief Jonas Aguiar, who took the reins of the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District from longtime chief Paige Meyer on Jan. 8.
“I’ve been working here for 23 years, and I know we’ve had little ones here and there, but I feel like this past – what, four months, five months that we’ve experienced – I haven’t had something like that in my time here,” Aguiar told the Weekly.
“I feel like that’s the part where people are like, ‘oh, well you have a little swarm and then it’s gone.’ You don’t think about it for another year or two,” he added. “This time it’s been what, hundreds of them – I don’t know the exact count over the last four months – but it makes everybody a little uneasy.”
With the wave of community interest accompanying the wave of earthquakes, Aguiar and the district have been undergoing something of a crash course in geology as they seek to understand the current situation and communicate with the community.
That included a countywide meeting Feb. 4 in which a U.S. Geological Survey representative spoke with Contra Costa County agencies about the history of earthquakes in the region.
“Historically – at least back until the time that we were able to start tracking it, which I believe was 1970ish when they first started compiling data on it – these are not uncommon for this area,” SRVFPD deputy chief Chris Parsons said. “I think the largest historical earthquake we’ve had in the valley was about 4.4 in Alamo.”
“A lot of these are (magnitude) 3, 3.5, there’s a couple 4s,” he continued. “But they typically don’t get larger than that. A lot of concern is that this is going to lead to a larger earthquake. According to the USGS, that’s not necessarily the case.”
Last week’s quakes, including the 4.2, were centered on a series of small thrust faults that run roughly between Crow Canyon Country Club and the Dougherty Hills. But the city, and other parts of the Tri-Valley, also sit in the major Calaveras Fault Zone that extends northward from the San Benito area through the San Ramon Valley, which also includes the seismically active Pleasanton Fault.
While experts say San Ramon is unlikely to be at the epicenter of a major quake, the Tri-Valley region could nonetheless be impacted by a major earthquake along the Calaveras Fault Zone.
A 2003 study found an 11% probability of a temblor of 6.7 or greater within the zone over the next 30 years, according to the USGS. But with the southern portion of the fault zone being more active than the northern portion running through the San Ramon Valley, it remains unclear exactly what the likelihood of a major earthquake near the magnitude of the 6.9 Loma Prieta quake in 1989 might be.
While the recent wave of seismic activity doesn’t necessarily indicate that a bigger quake is on the way, living in a geologically active region such as the Tri-Valley and the greater Bay Area means that the chance is always greater than zero – something that is consistently on the minds of communities and first responders.
For each earthquake over magnitude 4.0, SRVFPD typically puts out all of its equipment and activates each of its stations, conducting what is called a windshield survey following quakes 5.0 or higher in which first responders travel along pre-identified routes to get a sense of the damage that has occurred in various areas, using that information to then assess how to prioritize its responses.
In some cases, Aguiar said, that might been concentrating emergency responses in areas with high levels of damage or large numbers of people facing danger.
“Potentially, those areas may see fire services quicker because there’s a significantly higher loss of life potential,” Aguiar said. “We don’t typically drive by residences when there’s an earthquake, because we’re looking at these targeted areas. If people aren’t prepared, they don’t have supplies. And we know FEMA isn’t instantaneous.”
In a scenario such as that, Aguiar emphasized the importance for all households to prepare for emergencies with at least 72 hours of supplies.
“It takes time for the federal government or the state to also respond,” Aguiar said. “It’s going to be a difficult three days for them until they can get some kind of resources. And we don’t have caches of supplies for 200,000 people. That’s not typically how it works.”
“We have caches of supplies for our first responders so they can keep operations going 24/7,” he continued. “And that’s where we really try to educate residents – you guys have got to do your work. You’ve got to be prepared. You’ve got to have your system in place. When we can get there to help you, we’re going to do everything we can to mitigate your emergency. But there’s going to be a time delay, potentially aftershocks depending on the situation.”
More rural homes outside of major gathering places could be some of the last to receive aid in the event of an emergency impacting a more populated area.
“Let’s say it happened right now, and we had a significant earthquake – a school with 400 kids in it, well that’s where our focus is going to be,” Aguiar said.
That message, in addition to insight about San Ramon’s overall geology and seismic activity, are front and center in the district’s ongoing community engagement efforts, which are set to include a public talk with USGS scientists.
“Don’t wait until the emergency to prepare for the emergency,” Aguiar said. “Don’t wait until it happens to talk about what you’re going to do. Planning and preparing well in advance – we all know that California has potentials for earthquakes and wildfires, so don’t wait until one is at your back door before you decide ‘I need these important documents; I need these medications; I need to know where this is for my pet,’ – all of that should be detailed and actually rehearsed prior to the event taking place.”
In the case of earthquakes, even smaller ones, there are other factors to consider and steps to take.
“Part of your earthquake preparedness plan is that you should be able to go through your house and identify the things you can easily rectify on your own potentially, where you don’t need somebody to come out or spend a lot of money on,” Aguiar said.
From his perspective, Aguiar said that having young children at home serves as a reminder to secure heavy furniture such as dressers, as well as televisions.
“Those are small things that you can do that are really no-cost items that (residents) should be able to walk through their house and say OK, what are the risks associated with what I have here, and is there anything I can do about it just to make sure these things aren’t falling over and creating a larger risk for my family,” Aguiar said.
“I think those are like the bigger ones – TVs, dressers – It’s hard to know on cabinets, because everybody thinks their house was built properly,” he continued. “That’s a little bit harder to inspect. There’s a lot of normal stuff – obviously your hot water heater’s got to be lashed in, things like that, where it just doesn’t hurt to do a walk through.”
Aguiar is encouraging residents to visit the district’s website at firedepartment.org for a comprehensive list of emergency preparedness steps for earthquakes and other catastrophes.
More information will be coming soon on this year’s Community Emergency Response Team program through the district, a 27-hour course that teaches community members about disaster preparedness and response, as well as fire safety, medical operations and triage, search and rescue, team organization, and disaster psychology. An interest list is currently open on the SRVFPD website.
The district also hosts a series of three-hour Personal Emergency Preparedness classes in collaboration with the school district, county, city of San Ramon and town of Danville. It serves as a crash course in developing emergency preparedness kits and plans for surviving more than a week without emergency services in the event of a major catastrophe. Registration is now open for sessions on Feb. 24, March 23, and April 28, all from 6-9 p.m.
