But what we have learned is far surpassed by our astonishing luck. This destructive earthquake occurred in a sparsely populated area of the San Gabriel Mountains, near San Fernando. The Antelope Valley Freeway had damage from Newhall Pass to the northeast, primarily from settling and alignment issues, as well as splintering and cracking at the Santa Clara River and Solemint bridges. This paper compares the distribution of damage from the San Fernando, 1971, and Northridge, 1994, earthquakes. Since it is presumed that surface rupture will likely take place where past surface displacement has occurred, the state geologist was given the responsibility for evaluating and mapping faults that had evidence of Holocene rupture, and creating regulatory zones around them called Earthquake Fault Zones. The one-story Foothill Nursing Home sat very close to a section of the fault that broke the surface and was raised up three feet higher than the street. Some canals in the area of the dams were damaged and not usable, and dikes experienced slumping but these did not present a hazard. The 1979 Imperial Valley and 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquakes were presented as gainful events that were recorded during that period, because both produced valuable data that increased knowledge of how moderate events affect buildings. Black and white photograph. As we go to press one month later, 65 lives have been charged to it, and damage has been estimated at more than half a billion dollars. Most deaths occurred at the Veterans and Olive View hospital complexes, and the rest were located at private residences, the highway overpass collapses, and a ceiling collapse at the Midnight Mission in downtown Los Angeles. 1971 San Fernando (California) Earthquake Archive. Gas lines were broken and separation of the buildings' porches was due to lateral displacement of up to six inches. As a result of what was considered a fortunate accident, the machine kept recording for six minutes (until it ran out of paper) and provided scientists with additional data on 30 of the initial aftershocks. [19], The Medical Treatment and Care Building included a basement that was exposed (above grade) on the east and south sides, mixed (above and below grade) on the west side, and below grade on the north side of the building, the variation being due to the shallow slope at the site. Derrumbe del paso elevado, 1971 El terremoto de San Fernando de 1971 produjo, mayormente, daños en los pasos elevados de las carreteras y los hospitales. The group of one-story structures 300 feet west of the new facility, and some other buildings, were not damaged. They paid particular attention to hillsides that might give way in aftershocks, causing more havoc than already existed. Because of its consequences, the San Fernando earthquake was a major earthquake from the engineering point of view, even though it was only a moderate shock in seismological terms. The death toll of this earthquake was about 58, but the property damage was enormous. [12][13], All segments shared the common elements of thrust faulting with a component of left-lateral slip, a general east–west strike and a northward dip, but they were not unified with regard to their connection to the associated underlying bedrock. A little known fact was that the Van Norman … [18], Federal, county, and private hospitals suffered varying degrees of damage, with four major facilities in the San Fernando Valley suffering structural damage, and two of those collapsing. Schools were affected, as they had been during the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, but this time amended construction styles improved the outcome for the thousands of school buildings in the Los Angeles area. A preliminary report of their investigations is presented in this magazine. On Interstate 5, the most significant damage was between the Newhall Pass interchange on the north end and the I-5 / I-405 interchange in the south, where subsidence at the bridge approaches and cracking and buckling of the roadway made it unusable. The initial surveyors of the extensive faulting in the valley, foothills, and mountains reported only tectonic faulting, while excluding fissures and other features that arose from the effects of compaction and landsliding. Although the Richter magnitude of the tremblor was 6.6, ranking it as moderate to large, but not great, it shook a wide, heavily populated area, leaving death and destruction in its wake. The 1971 San Fernando earthquake (also known as the Sylmar earthquake) occurred in the early morning of February 9 in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in southern California. The areas that were affected by the strongest shaking were the outlying communities north of Los Angeles that are bounded by the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. On February 9, 1971, a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in California’s San Fernando Valley claimed 65 lives. Twenty-six buildings that were built prior to 1933 had been constructed following the local building codes and did not require seismic-resistant designs. The act restricts construction of buildings designed for human occupancy across potentially active faults. The building was not in use and remained standing. The wood frame buildings (classrooms, a multipurpose building, and some bungalows) were built after the Field Act, and damage and cleanup costs there totaled $42,000. The spans slipped off of their supports at either end due to lack of proper ties and insufficient space (a 14 in (360 mm) seat was provided) on the support columns. At 2 mi (3.2 km), Hubbard Street Elementary School was the closest school to Pacoima dam, and was also less than a mile from the Veterans Hospital complex. Teleseismic P, SV, and SH waves recorded by the WWSS and Canadian networks from the 1971 San Fernando, California earthquake (M L = 6.6) are modeled in the time domain to determine detailed features of the source as a prelude to studying the near and local field strong-motion observations. Soil liquefaction played a role within confined areas of the slide, but it was not responsible for all the motion at the site, and tectonic slip of faults in the area was also excluded as a cause. Another result of the event involved the hundreds of various types of landslides that were documented in the San Gabriel Mountains. the 1971 san fernando earthquake An hour before sunrise, at 6:01 AM, PST, on February 9, 1971, the San Fernando region was struck by one of the most devastating earthquakes in California history. Two were due to power failure of life-support systems and one, that of an employee who was struck by part of the collapsing building as he or she tried to exit the building, was a direct result of the destruction. The San Bernardino, Santa Ynez, and Santa Monica Mountains are also part of the anomalous east–west trending Transverse Ranges. 8 x 10 in. As one portion of the study, Dick Saul mapped in detail the southeast quarter of the Oat Mountain 71/2-minute quadrangle, through which the Santa Susana thrust fault cuts obliquely. The largest cumulative amount of slip of 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 m) occurred along the Sylmar and Tujunga segments. The southern California soil shook violently the morning of February 9, 1971. The damaged buildings variously were wood-frame and masonry structures. The 1971 San Fernando earthquake, also known as Sylmar earthquake, struck the San Fernando Valley near Sylmar at 6:00:55 a.m. PST on February 9, 1971… Messrs. Gray and Caldwell went immediately to the Los Angeles District Office where they maintained constant contact with field, administrative, and disaster staffs. Even at that time, engineers were against the idea of constructing buildings to resist the high forces that were seen in the El Centro shock, but after a 1966 earthquake peaked at .5g, and a maximum of 1.25g was observed at the Pacoima Dam during the San Fernando event, debate began as to whether that low requirement was sufficient. [16], The areas that were affected by the strongest shaking were the outlying communities north of Los Angeles that are bounded by the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The unanticipated thrust earthquake had a magnitude of 6.5 on the M s scale, and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme).The event was one in a series that affected the Los Angeles area in the late … [12], In repeated measurements of the different fault breaks, the results remained consistent, leading to the belief that most of the slip had occurred during the mainshock. Damage from the San Fernando, 1971, earthquake. Ground displacement at the site was ruled out as a major cause of the failure, and in addition to the fallen sections and a crane that was struck during the collapse, other portions of the overpass were also damaged. Most of the masonry and reinforced concrete buildings constructed after 1933 withstood the shaking and most did not collapse, but in 1972 a resolution came forth to abandon the site and the remaining structures were later demolished, the site becoming a city park. Gordon Oakeshott, Deputy Chief had mapped part of the San Fernando 15-minute quadrangle in doing research for his doctoral dissertation in 1936; he revised and extended the map for publication in 1958 as California Division of Mines Bulletin 172, Geology and mineral deposits of the San Fernando quadrangle, Los Angeles County, California. 1. Full Record Upon revisiting the scene of his earlier mapping, Mr. Saul was able to recognize that movement had taken place on the Santa Susana thrust, in the Bee Canyon area. The 1971 San Fernando earthquake struck at 6:00:55 a.m. PST on the morning of February 9, 1971. As a result, building of new structures for human occupancy across active fault lines was banned. The Olive View Medical Center and Veterans Hospital both experienced very heavy damage, and buildings collapsed at both sites, causing the majority of deaths that occurred. Casualties in these highly affected areas might have increased had the shock occurred later in the day. Had the earthquake hit at rush hours, when the streets and freeways were full of traffic; had it hit during school hours, when schools were filled with children--our grief might be much greater. The California Division of Mines and Geology is continuing to act as an information exchange center for those who have been and are engaged in geologic, se is mo logic, and geodetic investigations of the earthquake. "Anytime" came Feb. 9, 1971, when the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys were devastated by the 6.6-magnitude "Sylmar" earthquake, aka San Fernando earthquake, whose actual epicenter was in the Iron Canyon section of Sand Canyon in the SCV. One unit would be installed within the structure and the second would be set up as a free-field unit located a short distance away from the facility. An hour before sunrise, at 6:01 AM, PST, on February 9, 1971, the San Fernando region was struck by one of the most devastating earthquakes in California history. The maximum slip was up to 2 meters (6 feet). Loss of life that was directly attributable to the earthquake amounted to 58 (a number of heart attack and other health-related deaths were not included in this figure). The area of surface breaks on the ground at the site was 900 ft (270 m) (at its widest) and stretched 4,000 ft (1,200 m) down a 1% grade slope towards the southwest. University Library Contributing Institution California State University, Northridge Collection San Fernando Valley History Rights Information 2. The area where the heaviest effects were present was limited by geographical features on the three remaining margins, with the Santa Susana Mountains on the west, the February 9, 1971, Granada Hills, CA. From Wikipedia: 1971 Quake. It lasted about 60 seconds, and, in that brief span of time, took 65 lives, injured more than 2,000, and caused property damage estimated at $505 million. There was evidence to suggest the slope failure took place after the shaking had stopped. Several landslides occurred between Balboa Boulevard and California State Route 14, but the most significant damage occurred at the two major interchanges. Additional breaks occurred farther to the east that were in a more scattered fashion, while the western portion of the most affected area had less pronounced scarps, especially the detached Mission Wells segment. Other sites throughout the Los Angeles area had been instrumented as a result of local ordinances, and an extraordinary amount of strong motion data was recorded, more so than any other event up until that time. • The epicenter of the magnitude 6.6 disastrous earthquake was in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, at the northeastern edge of the Valley. The hospital was staffed by 98 employees and had 606 patients at the time of the earthquake; all three deaths that occurred at the Olive View complex were in this building. The two geologists Carl Wentworth and Robert Yerkes from the US Geological Survey in Pasadena later wrote that "the San Fernando fault was discovered to be active only when it ruptured the ground surface on February 9, 1971. In the vicinity of the Sylmar Fault segment, there was a low possibility of landslides due to a lack of elevation change, but in the foothills and mountainous area a large amount of landsliding occurred and more work was necessary to eliminate the possibility of misidentifying a feature. The area where the heaviest effects were present was limited by geographical features on the three remaining margins, with the Santa Susana Mountains on the west, the Santa Monica Mountains and the Los Angeles River to the south, and along the Verdugo Mountains to the east. The slides ranged from 49–984 feet (15–300 m) in length, and could be further categorized as rock falls, soil falls, debris slides, avalanches, and slumps. [9], The San Fernando earthquake occurred on February 9, 1971, at 6:00:41 am Pacific Standard Time (14:00:41 UTC) with a strong ground motion duration of about 12 seconds. The lower dam was very close to breaching, and approximately 80,000 people were evacuated for four days while the water level in the reservoir was lowered. [24], This interchange is a broad complex of overpasses and bridges that was nearly complete at the time of the earthquake and not all portions were open to traffic. Moving eastward, there is the Ventura Basin, the San Fernando Valley, and the San Gabriel Basin, with active reverse faults (San Cayetano, Red Mountain, Santa Susana, and Sierra Madre) all lining the north boundary. Find the perfect san fernando earthquake 1971 stock photo. The Los Angeles Unified School District had 660 schools consisting of 9,200 buildings at the time of the earthquake, with 110 masonry buildings that had not been reinforced to meet the new standards. English: The 1971 San Fernando earthquake in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles County, California. On February 9th, 1971, at approximately 6:00am, the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains were struck by a 6.7 earthquake. 1971 2/09 14:01 UTC 34.40N 118.39W 5km deep Ms=6.5, San Fernando, California. [16], The instrument that was installed at the Pacoima Dam recorded a peak horizontal acceleration of 1.25 g, a value that was twice as large as anything ever seen from an earthquake. This stipulation ultimately found its way into the Uniform Building Code as an appendix several years later. Except for the concrete gymnasium, all of the buildings at Sylmar High School (3.75 mi (6.04 km) from Pacoima Dam) were post-Field Act, one-story, wood construction. Scarps ran along the sidewalk and across the property. The 1971 earthquake has enabled him to add another facet to the study of the area he now knows so well. The total surface rupture was roughly 19 km (12 miles) long. Service breaks, main breaks and shattered mains in the water pipe system are shown, respectively, by solid points, and by small and large open circles. The duration of strong ground motion at that location was probably similar to the 12 seconds observed at the Pacoima Dam, and it is thought that another few seconds' shaking might have been enough to bring the building to collapse. As categorized during the intensive studies immediately following the earthquake, they were labeled the Mission Wells segment, Sylmar segment, Tujunga segment, Foothills area, and the Veterans fault. Ground displacement damaged sidewalks and roads, with cracks in the more rigid asphalt and concrete often exceeding the width of the shift in the underlying soil. More than 400 portable classrooms and 53 wood frame pre-Field Act buildings were also in use. The 1971 San Fernando earthquake (also known as the Sylmar earthquake) occurred in the early morning of February 9 in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in southern California. Recordprocessed by the JetPropulsion Laboratory, Pasadena; made avail­ able by the Earthquake Engineering Research Laboratory, California In­ Electrical power and communications failed at the hospital at the time of the earthquake, but very few people occupied the lower floors and the stairways at the early hour. [26][27], Introduced as Senate Bill 520 and signed into law in December 1972, this legislation was originally known as the Alquist-Priolo Geologic Hazard Zones Act, and had the goal of reducing damage and losses due to surface fault ruptures or fault creep. The gray zones represent areas with unsafe wood-frame dwellings (the locations of which are shown by a diamond symbols). Only three lives were lost: two were patients who died when forcibly cut off from their positive pressure breathing equipment, and one staff member was killed by falling debris outside the building. … Damage was locally severe in the northern San Fernando Valley and surface faulting was extensive to the south of the epicenter in the mountains, as well as urban settings along city streets and neighborhoods. 1975). These buildings suffered the most damage, with four buildings totally collapsing, which resulted in a large loss of life at the facility. Following the San Fernando event, earthquake engineers and seismologists from established scientific organizations, as well as the newly formed Los Angeles County Earthquake Commission, stated their recommendations that were based on the lessons learned. Also known as the Sylmar Earthquake, this earthquake occurred on the San Fernando fault zone, a zone of thrust faulting which broke the surface in the Sylmar-San Fernando Area. The overall fault displacement was summarized by geologist Barclay Kamb and others as "nearly equal amounts of north–south compression, vertical uplift (north side up), and left lateral slip and hence may be described as a thrusting of a northern block to the southwest over a southern block, along a fault surface dipping about 45° north. The damage at the lower dam consisted of a landslide that dislocated a section of the embankment. When the Sylmar-San Fernando earthquake struck Southern California in 1971, 64 people were killed and more than 2,500 injured. Several instances of failure or collapse at the site took place and two men were killed while driving in a pickup truck as a result. The success of the Imperial Valley event was especially pronounced because of a recently constructed and fully instrumented government building that was shaken to the point of failure. The accelerometer was mounted on a concrete platform on a granite ridge just above one of the arch dam's abutments. Highly shattered rock was also documented along the ridge tops, and rockfalls (which continued for several days) were the result of both the initial shock and the aftershocks. Unlike the situation at the Antelope Valley Interchange, permanent ground movement (defined as several inches of left-lateral displacement with possibly an element of thrusting) was observed in the area. A small number of damaging events have occurred, with three in Santa Barbara (1812, 1925, and 1978) and two in the San Fernando Valley (1971 and 1994), though other faults in the basin that have high Quaternary slip rates have not produced any large earthquakes. Although the county engineer has rated the medical care and treatment center and the psychiatric unit as total losses, for an estimated $31 million dollars, 615 patients and 300 staff members were safely evacuated. The five-story, reinforced-concrete Medical Treatment and Care Building was one of three new additions to the complex (all three of which sustained damage), was assembled with earthquake-resistant construction techniques, and was completed in December 1970. The Field Act was put into effect just one month following the destructive March 1933 Long Beach earthquake that damaged many public school buildings in Long Beach, Compton, and Whittier. [21], Differential ground motion and strong shaking (MMI VIII (Severe)) were responsible for serious damage to the Sylmar Juvenile Hall facility and the Sylmar Converter Station (both located close to the Upper Van Norman lake). Abundant cracks formed in the ground at the site, and some foundations and many sidewalks were also cracked. They were supported by aircraft: a fixed wing chartered plane and a helicopter provided and manned by the U. S. Marine Corps. In the city of San Fernando, underground water, sewer, and gas systems suffered breaks too numerous to count, and some sections were so badly damaged that they were abandoned. The upper lake subsided 3 feet (0.91 m) and was displaced about 5 feet (1.5 m) as a result of the ground movement, and the dam's concrete lining cracked and slumped. The unincorporated districts of Newhall, Saugus, and Solemint Junction had moderate damage, even to newer buildings. The success in this area spurred the initiation of California's Strong Motion Instrumentation Program. The event was one in a series that affected the Los Angeles area in the late … The event affected a number of health-care facilities in Sylmar, San Fernando, and other densely populated areas north of central Los Angeles. Cracks formed in the rocks and a rock slide came within 15 feet (4.6 m) of the apparatus, and the foundation remained undamaged, but a small (half-degree) tilt of the unit was discovered that was apparently responsible for closing the horizontal pendulum contacts. The list of items needing improvements included building codes, dams and bridges being made more earthquake resistant, hospitals that are designed to remain operational, and the restriction of development near known fault zones. As had happened following other earthquakes in California, legislation related to building codes was once again revised, with laws that specifically addressed the construction of homes or businesses near known active fault zones. One of the hardest-hit buildings was the just-completed San Fernando Veterans Administration Hospital, whose unreinforced concrete wings collapsed, killing at … Had shaking of the endangered reservoirs continued for 2 seconds more, it has been estimated that there would have been no time to evacuate those below. Damage to the building, including ceiling tiles, telephone equipment, and elevator doors, was excessive at the basement and the first floor, with little damage further up. The Indian Hills Medical Center, the Foothill Medical Building, and the Pacoima Lutheran Professional building were heavily damaged. The event was one in a series that affected Los Angeles county in the late 20th century. The fault that was responsible for the movement was not one that had been considered a threat, and this highlighted the urgency to identify other similar faults in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The narrow band of ground disturbances were found to have been the result of settling of the soft soil in a downhill motion. [15], In early 1971, the San Fernando Valley was the scene of a dense network of strong-motion seismometers, which provided a total of 241 seismograms. Later known as the San Fernando Earthquake, the quake was responsible for $500 million dollars worth of damage and causes 65 deaths (most of the deaths occurred when the Veteran's Administration Hospital collapsed). Although the complete Sierra Madre Fault Zone had previously been mapped and classified by name into its constituent faults, the clusters of fault breaks provided a natural way to identify and refer to each section. The buildings at both facilities were constructed with mixed styles, but engineers were unable to thoroughly study the buildings' responses because they were not outfitted with instruments for recording strong ground motion, and this prompted the Veterans Administration to later install seismometers at its high-risk sites. The difference in rigidity at the second floor was proposed as a cause of the considerable damage to the lower levels. In 1969, the California Division of Mines and Geology published Map Sheet 15, entitled Preliminary reconnaissance map of major landslides, San Gabriel Mountains, California, by D. M. Morton and R. Streitz. As much as 5 ft (1.5 m) of lateral motion was observed on either end of the slide, and trenches that were excavated during the examination at the site revealed that some of the cracks were up to 15 ft (4.6 m) deep. [8], Paleomagnetic evidence has shown that the western Transverse Ranges were formed as the Pacific Plate moved northward relative to the North American Plate. This was done as a precaution to accommodate further collapse due to a strong aftershock. osti.gov technical report: damage survey, san fernando earthquake of february 9, 1971. [28][29], The San Gabriel Mountains with the Veterans Hospital complex in center (above) and selected cities with reported felt intensity in the United States (below), Ground level and overhead view of the scarp at the Foothill Nursing Home, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Interstate 210 and State Route 210 (California), List of Los Angeles Unified School District schools, "Preliminary strong-motion results from the San Fernando earthquake of February 9, 1971", "Tectonic setting of the San Gabriel mountains", "Seismically triggered landslides in the area above the San Fernando Valley", "The study of earthquake questions related to Veterans Administration hospital facilities", "Damage to constructed works, associated with soil movements and foundation failures", "Ground displacement at San Fernando Valley Juvenile Hall and the Sylmar Converter Station", "Highway damage in the San Fernando earthquake", "Earthquake damage to freeway structures", "History of the Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault Zoning Act, California, USA", "San Fernando 1971: M 6.6 - 10km SSW of Agua Dulce, CA", "Seismological studies of the San Fernando earthquake and their tectonic implications", "Strong motion data from the San Fernando, California, earthquake of February 9, 1971", "Pattern of faulting and nature of fault movement in the San Fernando earthquake", "Building damage in the San Fernando Valley", Historic Earthquakes – San Fernando, California, California Geological Survey – About CSMIP, Veterans Memorial Community Regional Park, Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1971_San_Fernando_earthquake&oldid=1001027502, Geology of Los Angeles County, California, February 1971 events in the United States, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 17 January 2021, at 22:28. 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