Sunday, October 17, 1999
California quake rattles Valley
Termblor wakes, confuses many Arizonans
By Laura Trujillo
The Arizona Republic
When a jolt shook Frances Becklean awake early Saturday morning, the 87-year-old Sun City resident figured something must have exploded nearby. This is Arizona, the retired secretary thought to herself It can't be an earthquake.
Across town in Chandler, the shaking startled Mary McCormick from her bed and sent the former California resident scurrying to her closet. "I was looking for safer ground, in case it was the big one," she said.
The 7.0-magnitude temblor that rolled through the desolate desert in Southern California just before 3 a.m. Saturday, the most powerful quake to hit the state since 1992, caused few injuries and little damage.
But 245 miles away in the Valley, it splashed water in swimming pools, shook people from their dreams and flooded 911 operators with more than 400 calls.
It also spurred a day's worth of conversation as folks swapped stories about what they were doing when they felt the quake and what it felt like in homes from Carefree to south Phoenix. Part of being a Valley resident is getting excited about an earthquake, feeling the shocks from far away yet still confident that the walls and roof won't collapse.
Another part is pure shock at being rattled awake. Lisa Ferro was watching a movie in bed when she felt the mattress shake. "I was creeped out. I woke my friend up and went over there," said the 38-year-old haunted-house worker from northwest Phoenix. "I' thought it was a poltergeist, a spirit or something."
"I thought I was dreaming," recalled Curtis Johnson, 40, of north Phoenix, "The bed was shaking so hard, I thought it was lifting up. . . . Then the airconditioning turned on. I thought it was a spirit."
Although every so often a quake somewhere in Southern California rattles windows and jingles chandeliers here, the likelihood of a full-blown. earthquake in Arizona is low. The state has about 20 faults, or cracks in the Earth's crust, and has the smallest earthquake potential of the Western states.
Since 1900, northern Arizona has been rattled by three quakes of Mojave about 6.0 magnitude, a level that four can cause extensive damage. They occurred near Flagstaff in 1906, north of Flagstaff in 1910 and near the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in 1912. a Still, the tentacles from California's quake put the quivers in Valley residents and sent many calling police. Emergency dispatchers were flooded with 911 calls across Arizona. I
"We were inundated with 911 calls from people who thought that there was everything from prowlers on their roof to people swimming in their pools with water splashing," said Sgt. Dave Trombi of the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office.
"People just wanted to know what the heck happened," said Hal Brooks, communication supervisor for Glendale. He said 58 people called police just after the quake hit. "We didn't know what had happened," Brooks said.
The earthquake, with its epicenter near Ludlow, derailed an Amtrak train near the town in the a Mojave Desert, slightly injuring four of the 155 passengers. It also cracked an overpass on Interstate 40. But occurring in the remote desert, the quake caused little damage, even in the populated areas I to the south rind west.
The quake's effect in the Valley was more psychological, logical, confusing people during the night and stirring excitement among some who felt the shakes of their first temblor.
Don Kurtz just got home from a dance in Sun City when the shaking slid him off the toilet. "I'm 69. I thought I was having a stroke," he said. "The tile was rocking, the bathroom floor was moving like I was on a waterbed. Then I knew what it was, but I thought, 'Not in Phoenix.' " Kurtz, a retired railroad worker, went to wake up his son. "He just thought I was crazy," he said. "But I noticed the dogs barking, so I knew it really happened."
The Associated Press contributed to this article.