I was living in Long Beach at the time and we certainly faired better than the S.F. Valley; but because the whole city sits on basin sediment the shaking was every bit as bad as it was north of the Santa Monica Mtns. My dad built our house 7 years earlier on the side of a hill and framed it out of steel I-beams. He told me recently that he didn't specifically build it to the earthquake standards at the time, so it's happenstance that our house sat barely a quarter mile from the Newport-Inglewood Fault, which was the source of the LB earthquake of 1933. That ultimately saved us from any serious damage after the Sylmar quake; the only damage I ever found was a crack in the retaining wall behind the garage.
How did 50 years pass so fast? My high school was below the Van Norman Dam. The power was out for a week and we were afraid to sleep in the house. We slept in our Dodge Motorhome that used to belong to Dick Smothers and used the generator to power the fridge and lights. The quake delayed our graduation for 2 weeks. It happened before dawn and my book shelf fell on my face and I cut my feet on broken glass in the dark and tripped on furniture that wasn't supposed to be there. I was sure that the Soviets nuked us. The quake burned into my brain and made me have life long habits. My home is wired for an automatic 12 volt lighting system with seismic switch, each car is kept full of gas with a spare key attached to it so I can bail out at a moment's notice, foundation is bolted, furniture has restraints attached. RIP to those lost 50 years ago.
@@TheBlackAztec3 Interesting...yeah, maybe. I was supposed to die on May 25, 1979 in an airliner crash. I has reservations on American Flight 191 but didn't go, didn't cancel my reservations. Some poor soul on standby got my seat. It was Memorial Day Weekend. My parents and brother in Tujunga knew that I was coming home but a freaky thing made me not fly that day. They thought I died in the crash with 271 other people and 2 on the ground in Chicago. Really weird was that I very randomly met a lady in 2001 who was a Flight Attendant with American. She became my girlfriend for 8 years and her roommate in Dallas and San Diego was killed on AA191, has her name on the memorial wall. I almost croaked a few other times in 1979. I think my Fortune has a Guardian!
As a private building inspector, I saw a majority of pre-WWII houses lacking any seismic retrofit. I'm told a number of high rise downtown LA structures have insufficient structural welds and have not been retrofit. Then there is "soft story" construction, which also tended to fail in this earthquake. The retrofit for this is mandated in some but not all Southern California cities and ongoing. We are not ready at all.
My 3 story apartment building in the Bay Area had soft first floors...garages built of concrete block, 4'' steel posts, timber beams with woefully inadequate steel saddles, and open front side where the doors were. I sold it in 2018. That place is going down without a doubt when the Hayward Fault lets loose.
I was in the 71 Sylmar quake, where a hospital collapsed about a mile from our house. Our house was moved over an inch on its foundation. Every window blew our, all the dishes and other stuff flew out of the cabinets. A large crack shot across the interior roof. Two dams were in danger of collapsing, and are still shut down to this day. We were evacuated from the San Fernando valley, due to those dams potential for collapse. It was a turning point in California architecture. I was just a kid, visiting from Northern California. San Jose. I remember it vividly to this day. It was a very scary experience.
You were right at the epicenter, very scary! I was in Porter Ranch, and it was scary for me too! I still have a magazine pictorial, and it shows some of the houses in Sylmar that were so severely damaged.
My first major earthquake was the 1987 Whittier earthquake, I was 11 and remember that I’d just walked into the gate of my elementary school and was walking up the stairs when everything began to shake and I held on to the railing absolutely confused and I remember hearing the sound of a great rumbling, I don’t, however, remember being scared as so many other students and teachers, I was just very confused bout what had just happened.
I was in kindergarten at Harding Street Elementary when this happened. We lived on Fenton Avenue, not too far from the VA hospital. We spent the day in our backyard eating PBJs and watching helicopters fly rescue missions from the hospital while my dad did his best trying to clean up the damage in the kitchen. I'll never forget this day.
I went to Harding Street Elementary also (I was "elected" president of the school when I was in 6th grade!) Lived on Romont St at the time. Fortunately, my family had moved to Hawaii almost exactly a year before this quake hit, but my best friend, who still lived there, told me he was bounced out of bed that morning.
I was 13 years old, living in Porter Ranch (Northridge) when this quake occurred at 6:01 am. I still have a magazine pictorial of this quake. It shook for 52 seconds. Woke me up. first thought I had, was that Russia, or China was bombing us, then thought, "this is an earthquake, I didn't know that they could be this big!" From 2:25-2:31 that fire was the result of a gas main rupture at a Thrifty drug store in Granada Hills, less than a mile from our house, that took out 8 stores. My uncle was building Magic Mountain in Valencia, Calif. when this quake occurred. He was the one who picked the site of it, named it, and was the President of it. It delayed it's opening of it, which happened on May 28, 1971. In 1994, when the Northridge quake hit, I was living in the City of San Fernando. Our house was built in 1948, and held up really well. That quake lasted about 25 seconds, the Sylmar one was a lot scarier for me.
I was 14 and right there with ya. We lived in Long Beach, 30-some miles from the epicenter, and it might as well have been right under us. The entire L.A. Basin is ocean and alluvial sediment, so when the S-waves arrived it knocked us all on our ass. When I found out a few minutes later where the epicenter was I couldn't believe it, I thought since we were in LB that the Newport-Inglewood Fault had ruptured again. My only other experience with an earthquake before Sylmar was the Borrego Mtn quake in '68; a long way away from LB but it still sloshed half the water out of our pool and swung our doors open. That was scary enough; then Sylmar happened a little less than 3 years later and I was absolutely petrified.
I was 10 years old in Rowland Heights when this quake hit. Felt strong even out in the San Gabriel Valley. The aftershocks throughout the day. KTLA live news on all day.
I was around 5 when this happened and lived a mile and a half from the Dam. The earthquake was huge and remember all the collapsed houses and freeway overpasses, etc. I didn’t know until that we were so close to the dam collapsing. Wow.
I still remember Brokaw reporting from the Van Norman reservoir that evening; everybody was fixated on the dam because we all thought it could collapse at any moment. They were both working at KNBC at the time.
We lived in Hollywood at the time the quake hit. I remember screaming because it woke us up all the shaking and dishes breaking. My father worked in Sylmer, and we went to his work to retrieve work to do at home. The damage was awful!! There were gas fires, water pipes busted but the building's is what stood out the most. I was 12 and this was just devastating to me. Oh dont forget the freeways under construction that fell on cars and broke apart. I will never forget what I saw.
I lived 50 feet from Glen Oaks Blvd. It opened a crack 5 feet wide by 8 feet deep. We did not have lights, water or gas for 2 months. The Neighbors house picked up moved sideways and set back down in the other neighbors from yard Ive never been so scared in my life, I was 13 went to Olive Vista Middle school, my bed was thrown from wall to wall it was 6:01 am
Around 6AM in the morning when this earthquake hit - There were pre-shocks to this earthquake 1 month before 2/9. We were leaving the old round Kaiser building in Panorama City with my newborn sister roughly 1/7 and there was a decent shake walking through the old lobby/pharmacy corridor.
I rode it out in Pacoima . What a ride ! My gGrandma was in the hospital too . Luckily not Olive Veiw. soon after the quake there was a eclipse and the ground shook as soon as it happened . a scientist on t.v. was saying the earth could shake from it . He was rght ! Everyone on my street was outside watching the event then bammo .
The night before I came in around 9 and parked my motorcycle and stared at the moon for 15 minutes. It looked so big, threatening, and ominous. I rode my motorcycle the next morning after the quake to check on relatives and saw the huge land displacement where the 210 freeway was being built. Some guy ran his earthmover off the highway and plowed into a rest home.
Yes I remember this earthquake February 9th 1971 I was pregnant with my daughter at the time sleeping on the couch in the living room I woke up and I can see the the living room windows moving back and forth waiting for them to break it was very scary but my little sister was sleeping in in in her bedroom and my little brother was sleeping too woke him up and told him all about the earthquake cuz they were lucky they slept through it we lived in Compton at the time
I was less than 6 months old, and at the time my parents and I were living in Fullerton. My mom would say how my crib would roll from one side to the other in my room. People still talked about that quake years later, and well into the 80s, remnants of it could still be seen on the ground.
I lived 30 miles from the epicenter. I remember this quake very well I was 6 years old and my bed was bouncing from wall to wall because of hardwood floors and it was like being on continuous rolls and shakes. I’m a native Californian and this quake scared me the most.
I was still in bed in Long Beach when it hit. My bed shook a lot. I looked at our pool and there were waves going back and forth. One of the big aftershocks happened when I was in gym class, upstairs, (heath). That was frightening cause my high school, Wilson (go Bruins!) is very old!
I was attending Will Rogers Jr Hi (9th grade) when the Sylmar quake hit; we lived on Prospect Ave at the foot of the hill just up from 2nd St in Belmont Shore. My dad built that house out of steel I-beams so there wasn't much of a threat of the house coming down; but the S waves were so intense I coulda swore the earthquake was right under us. I normally woke up at 6:00 am to get ready for school but the quake was my alarm that day. Initially I didn't think it was much; when the P waves arrived it was just a slight rattle; thought maybe it was another tanker explosion like one that had happened on PCH the year before. _Then_ the S waves arrived and there was stuff flying everywhere. I was too damned scared to get outta the bed. 20 minutes later was a 6.0 aftershock and we were all like "Here we go again...." Later in the afternoon when I got the news turned on I was aghast at the damage done in the S.F. Valley.
I remember it like it was yesterday were living in Tarzana I was 10 years old that was my first quake I ever felt. Earthquakes are something else. You All Take Care 😎 I
I lived in Sun Valley. I was 6. I didn't know what the heck was happening. For a moment I thought my parents were fighting. I mean what else could it be making the house shake and dishes in the kitchen break. I never heard about earthquakes. When school opened, it's all we did all day was do fire drills. Get under your desk kids.
I lived 30 miles from the epicenter. I remember this quake very well I was 6 years old and my bed was bouncing from wall to wall because of hardwood floors and it was like being on continuous rolls and shakes. I’m a native Californian and this quake scared me the most.
Sylmar is certainly the worst quake _I've_ ever experienced. The shaking was unbelievably strong for an epicenter that was almost 40 miles from our house in Long Beach. it might as well have been a mile away, that's how bad it shook.
Historic, informative and unbiased. This is the type of content I've been missing about LA Times.
My grandma would tell me stories of that quake as she lived in San Fernando when it happened.
Yes,I was living in S.F. Valley at that time and I remember it was unusually hot that day for Feb. Everything was so quiet and Erie for days!
Nobody told us about aftershocks. We were afraid to be in the house for 2 weeks. Loma Prieta in 1989 was a picnic at the time compared to Sylmar.
My uncle was in that hospital when it happened. A wall fell on him. We saw him being carried out on a stretcher on the news.
That must've been tragic. Hope all is well.
That earthquake kept me out of school for quite some time!
50 years ago today I was awoken by this earthquake living in Chatsworth.
I was living in Long Beach at the time and we certainly faired better than the S.F. Valley; but because the whole city sits on basin sediment the shaking was every bit as bad as it was north of the Santa Monica Mtns. My dad built our house 7 years earlier on the side of a hill and framed it out of steel I-beams. He told me recently that he didn't specifically build it to the earthquake standards at the time, so it's happenstance that our house sat barely a quarter mile from the Newport-Inglewood Fault, which was the source of the LB earthquake of 1933. That ultimately saved us from any serious damage after the Sylmar quake; the only damage I ever found was a crack in the retaining wall behind the garage.
How did 50 years pass so fast? My high school was below the Van Norman Dam. The power was out for a week and we were afraid to sleep in the house. We slept in our Dodge Motorhome that used to belong to Dick Smothers and used the generator to power the fridge and lights. The quake delayed our graduation for 2 weeks. It happened before dawn and my book shelf fell on my face and I cut my feet on broken glass in the dark and tripped on furniture that wasn't supposed to be there. I was sure that the Soviets nuked us. The quake burned into my brain and made me have life long habits. My home is wired for an automatic 12 volt lighting system with seismic switch, each car is kept full of gas with a spare key attached to it so I can bail out at a moment's notice, foundation is bolted, furniture has restraints attached. RIP to those lost 50 years ago.
Wow your life sounds interesting i was born 30 years after this so I never heard of it until now. But time does fly by fast as hell
@@TheBlackAztec3 Interesting...yeah, maybe. I was supposed to die on May 25, 1979 in an airliner crash. I has reservations on American Flight 191 but didn't go, didn't cancel my reservations. Some poor soul on standby got my seat. It was Memorial Day Weekend. My parents and brother in Tujunga knew that I was coming home but a freaky thing made me not fly that day. They thought I died in the crash with 271 other people and 2 on the ground in Chicago. Really weird was that I very randomly met a lady in 2001 who was a Flight Attendant with American. She became my girlfriend for 8 years and her roommate in Dallas and San Diego was killed on AA191, has her name on the memorial wall. I almost croaked a few other times in 1979. I think my Fortune has a Guardian!
@@kimmer6 you should right a book 😂
@@TheBlackAztec3 Gonna take a while....I type with one fayngar.
@@TheBlackAztec3 Write. And I agree.
As a private building inspector, I saw a majority of pre-WWII houses lacking any seismic retrofit. I'm told a number of high rise downtown LA structures have insufficient structural welds and have not been retrofit. Then there is "soft story" construction, which also tended to fail in this earthquake. The retrofit for this is mandated in some but not all Southern California cities and ongoing. We are not ready at all.
My 3 story apartment building in the Bay Area had soft first floors...garages built of concrete block, 4'' steel posts, timber beams with woefully inadequate steel saddles, and open front side where the doors were. I sold it in 2018. That place is going down without a doubt when the Hayward Fault lets loose.
I was in the 71 Sylmar quake, where a hospital collapsed about a mile from our house. Our house was moved over an inch on its foundation. Every window blew our, all the dishes and other stuff flew out of the cabinets. A large crack shot across the interior roof. Two dams were in danger of collapsing, and are still shut down to this day. We were evacuated from the San Fernando valley, due to those dams potential for collapse. It was a turning point in California architecture.
I was just a kid, visiting from Northern California. San Jose. I remember it vividly to this day. It was a very scary experience.
You were right at the epicenter, very scary! I was in Porter Ranch, and it was scary for me too! I still have a magazine pictorial, and it shows some of the houses in Sylmar that were so severely damaged.
The veterans hospital I think
I think the lady at 1:40 is my aunt. I remember telling the story she ran out of the house and fell in a manhole if memory serves me right.
My first major earthquake was
the 1987 Whittier earthquake,
I was 11 and remember that
I’d just walked into the gate
of my elementary school and
was walking up the stairs
when everything began to
shake and I held on to the
railing absolutely confused
and I remember hearing the
sound of a great rumbling, I
don’t, however, remember
being scared as so many
other students and teachers,
I was just very confused bout
what had just happened.
I was out there when that quake hit visiting my dad.
I was in kindergarten at Harding Street Elementary when this happened. We lived on Fenton Avenue, not too far from the VA hospital. We spent the day in our backyard eating PBJs and watching helicopters fly rescue missions from the hospital while my dad did his best trying to clean up the damage in the kitchen. I'll never forget this day.
I went to Harding Street Elementary also (I was "elected" president of the school when I was in 6th grade!) Lived on Romont St at the time. Fortunately, my family had moved to Hawaii almost exactly a year before this quake hit, but my best friend, who still lived there, told me he was bounced out of bed that morning.
Start preparing for the big one, got it. 👌🏽
I was 13 years old, living in Porter Ranch (Northridge) when this quake occurred at 6:01 am. I still have a magazine pictorial of this quake. It shook for 52 seconds. Woke me up. first thought I had, was that Russia, or China was bombing us, then thought, "this is an earthquake, I didn't know that they could be this big!" From 2:25-2:31 that fire was the result of a gas main rupture at a Thrifty drug store in Granada Hills, less than a mile from our house, that took out 8 stores. My uncle was building Magic Mountain in Valencia, Calif. when this quake occurred. He was the one who picked the site of it, named it, and was the President of it. It delayed it's opening of it, which happened on May 28, 1971. In 1994, when the Northridge quake hit, I was living in the City of San Fernando. Our house was built in 1948, and held up really well. That quake lasted about 25 seconds, the Sylmar one was a lot scarier for me.
I was 13 thought the world was coming to an end
I was 14 and right there with ya. We lived in Long Beach, 30-some miles from the epicenter, and it might as well have been right under us. The entire L.A. Basin is ocean and alluvial sediment, so when the S-waves arrived it knocked us all on our ass. When I found out a few minutes later where the epicenter was I couldn't believe it, I thought since we were in LB that the Newport-Inglewood Fault had ruptured again. My only other experience with an earthquake before Sylmar was the Borrego Mtn quake in '68; a long way away from LB but it still sloshed half the water out of our pool and swung our doors open. That was scary enough; then Sylmar happened a little less than 3 years later and I was absolutely petrified.
I was 10 years old in Rowland Heights when this quake hit. Felt strong even out in the San Gabriel Valley. The aftershocks throughout the day. KTLA live news on all day.
I was around 5 when this happened and lived a mile and a half from the Dam. The earthquake was huge and remember all the collapsed houses and freeway overpasses, etc. I didn’t know until that we were so close to the dam collapsing. Wow.
Stay Aware and Prepared
How do I stay prepared
First major earthquake I experienced. I remember watching Tom Snyder and Tom Brokaw reporting from a dark school auditorium where the bell tower fell.
I still remember Brokaw reporting from the Van Norman reservoir that evening; everybody was fixated on the dam because we all thought it could collapse at any moment. They were both working at KNBC at the time.
I lived in Riverside Ca, it also was felt there , I was 15. I also remember the Whittier narrows of 1987
We lived in Hollywood at the time the quake hit. I remember screaming because it woke us up all the shaking and dishes breaking. My father worked in Sylmer, and we went to his work to retrieve work to do at home. The damage was awful!! There were gas fires, water pipes busted but the building's is what stood out the most. I was 12 and this was just devastating to me. Oh dont forget the freeways under construction that fell on cars and broke apart. I will never forget what I saw.
I lived 50 feet from Glen Oaks Blvd. It opened a crack 5 feet wide by 8 feet deep. We did not have lights, water or gas for 2 months. The Neighbors house picked up moved sideways and set back down in the other neighbors from yard Ive never been so scared in my life, I was 13 went to Olive Vista Middle school, my bed was thrown from wall to wall it was 6:01 am
Around 6AM in the morning when this earthquake hit - There were pre-shocks to this earthquake 1 month before 2/9. We were leaving the old round Kaiser building in Panorama City with my newborn sister roughly 1/7 and there was a decent shake walking through the old lobby/pharmacy corridor.
My mom was at JC Penney's that was built on rollers and felt the building roll back and forth. I assume that was 1/7.
I rode it out in Pacoima . What a ride ! My gGrandma was in the hospital too . Luckily not Olive Veiw. soon after the quake there was a eclipse and the ground shook as soon as it happened . a scientist on t.v. was saying the earth could shake from it . He was rght ! Everyone on my street was outside watching the event then bammo .
The night before I came in around 9 and parked my motorcycle and stared at the moon for 15 minutes. It looked so big, threatening, and ominous. I rode my motorcycle the next morning after the quake to check on relatives and saw the huge land displacement where the 210 freeway was being built. Some guy ran his earthmover off the highway and plowed into a rest home.
I was a city firefighter at that time. We were told to use San Fernando Valley Rd. All Freeway overcrossings were down.
Yes I remember this earthquake February 9th 1971 I was pregnant with my daughter at the time sleeping on the couch in the living room I woke up and I can see the the living room windows moving back and forth waiting for them to break it was very scary but my little sister was sleeping in in in her bedroom and my little brother was sleeping too woke him up and told him all about the earthquake cuz they were lucky they slept through it we lived in Compton at the time
We lived in Compton too I remember the bunk beds we we were sleeping in me on top bounced up and down thought someone was kicking under mine.
And people still don’t do the necessary tasks to prepare for disaster
I was less than 6 months old, and at the time my parents and I were living in Fullerton. My mom would say how my crib would roll from one side to the other in my room. People still talked about that quake years later, and well into the 80s, remnants of it could still be seen on the ground.
I was 8 years old at the time. Living in Long Beach. I've lived in California my whole life and this was the biggest earthquake I've ever felt.
I lived 30 miles from the epicenter. I remember this quake very well I was 6 years old and my bed was bouncing from wall to wall because of hardwood floors and it was like being on continuous rolls and shakes. I’m a native Californian and this quake scared me the most.
9 yrs old, Lynwood,Ca.
I was still in bed in Long Beach when it hit. My bed shook a lot. I looked at our pool and there were waves going back and forth. One of the big aftershocks happened when I was in gym class, upstairs, (heath). That was frightening cause my high school, Wilson (go Bruins!) is very old!
I was attending Will Rogers Jr Hi (9th grade) when the Sylmar quake hit; we lived on Prospect Ave at the foot of the hill just up from 2nd St in Belmont Shore. My dad built that house out of steel I-beams so there wasn't much of a threat of the house coming down; but the S waves were so intense I coulda swore the earthquake was right under us. I normally woke up at 6:00 am to get ready for school but the quake was my alarm that day.
Initially I didn't think it was much; when the P waves arrived it was just a slight rattle; thought maybe it was another tanker explosion like one that had happened on PCH the year before. _Then_ the S waves arrived and there was stuff flying everywhere. I was too damned scared to get outta the bed. 20 minutes later was a 6.0 aftershock and we were all like "Here we go again...." Later in the afternoon when I got the news turned on I was aghast at the damage done in the S.F. Valley.
1:06 Very smart man to take out his boat.
Today, February 9th, 2023..... 52 years ago today.
I was 4 living on Ash St in Highland Park. I still remember that morning something you never quite forget.
I remember it well. About 6:30 am. The clothes in my closet danced off the rod. It moved the kitchen stove. Some of the wall paneling came loose.
Was in this quake. My dad lost his business. 30 days later we were living in Tampa
The big one is coming....an event that will change everything in the twinkling of an eye.
I remember it like it was yesterday were living in Tarzana I was 10 years old that was my first quake I ever felt. Earthquakes are something else. You All Take Care 😎 I
I lived in Sun Valley. I was 6. I didn't know what the heck was happening. For a moment I thought my parents were fighting. I mean what else could it be making the house shake and dishes in the kitchen break. I never heard about earthquakes. When school opened, it's all we did all day was do fire drills. Get under your desk kids.
They musta had some hella fights back then.
@@briane173 lol. No, they never fought.
Sun Valley, also. I was 10.
I remember this on the news
What happened to Hollyweird 2-9-2021. Now its Chinawood , Bollywood
And it was foretold, the ground would shake and the ground would open up and the filthy rich will fall in!
The big one is coming.
We got a school day thanks to this. 2021
The 1970's were horrible.
Long Beach 1933 Sylmar 1971 big damaging quakes
50 year later
# stopmedicaldisc
Fire Heffernan
This is wheird
🤣😉
Fire Virginia
I lived 30 miles from the epicenter. I remember this quake very well I was 6 years old and my bed was bouncing from wall to wall because of hardwood floors and it was like being on continuous rolls and shakes. I’m a native Californian and this quake scared me the most.
Sylmar is certainly the worst quake _I've_ ever experienced. The shaking was unbelievably strong for an epicenter that was almost 40 miles from our house in Long Beach. it might as well have been a mile away, that's how bad it shook.