San Francisco could soon ban right-hand turns on red lights, making it the second-largest city in the country to adopt the traffic rule.

The proposal, supporters said, could make the roads safer for bicyclists and pedestrians, encourage more people to walk, and cut down on the number of serious injuries in car accidents.

“Allowing turns on red results in deaths, injuries and collisions, as well as cars blocking or driving through crosswalks, making it more dangerous and stressful to cross the street,” said San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston as he introduced the measure last week at a Board of Supervisors meeting. “We should be expanding no turn on red to every neighborhood.”

Advocates for pedestrian safety have applauded the resolution, saying the proposed law could have a significant effect on reducing the number of pedestrians who are seriously injured by cars. Although some advocates said they were hopeful San Francisco would institute the rule, which New York previously adopted, the chances of a similar measure taking root in Los Angeles are slim, at least for now.

L.A. is “so car-centric” that people would think it was “the end of the world if we tried to implement this in Los Angeles,” said Damian Kevitt, founder of Streets Are for Everyone, a nonprofit that pushes for safety improvements for pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers.

In Los Angeles, advocacy groups have pushed to hold pedestrian-friendly events to get across to the public the need to walk more and drive less, as well as advocating for lowering speed limits on some streets and other measures to improve safety. But even the most ardent supporters are doubtful that a push to ban right turns on red lights would gain any traction in the county, at least for now.

“This is something that’s going to take years of work to even get to the point where it would be considered in L.A.,” Kevitt said.

Drivers in San Francisco, on the other hand, have already gotten a taste of what a ban on right-hand turns would look like.

In the fall of 2021, San Francisco banned right-hand turns on red lights in more than 50 intersections of the Tenderloin neighborhood.

According to an early assessment of the program from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, the ban reduced the number of “close calls.”

The agency found that about 92% of vehicles were observing the rule, and the number of cars blocking crosswalks during a red light decreased by 70%.

After the initial program, SFMTA recommended expanding the rule to business districts. Preston’s resolution asks the agency to look at the possibility of expanding it across the city.

“It’s an important step in the right direction,” Preston said during the board meeting. “It’s a step we need to take in the city.”

Preston’s resolution comes after a 4-year-old in a stroller was killed in August by a driver making a right-hand turn on a green light at the intersection of 4th and King streets.

The tragedy raised questions about pedestrian safety at that intersection and citywide. Shortly after the incident, San Francisco Mayor London Breed called on SFMTA to identify changes that could be made to the intersection, including removing one of its two right-turn lanes, and changing the traffic signal to show a yellow arrow, instead of a green light, to encourage drivers to yield to pedestrians.

According to one study by Jerry, an insurance comparison company that drew on data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the number of pedestrians killed in car crashes reached a four-decade high across the country in 2021, reaching more than 7,000 people.

Another study, from Streets Are for Everyone, found that in the city of Los Angeles there were 159 pedestrians killed in car crashes in 2022, a 20% increase when compared with 2021.

In San Francisco, the city in 2022 saw 39 traffic deaths, including 20 pedestrians killed — the highest number of fatalities in 15 years.

San Francisco and Los Angeles chalked up those alarming numbers despite adopting Vision Zero, a commitment from city officials to eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.

Officials have taken steps to reduce the number of fatalities. In February of last year, the Los Angeles City Council approved a plan to reduce speed limits on 177 miles of road by 5 mph. According to the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, the project is underway.

Excessive speed is a leading factor in collisions, advocates said.

City officials also have pushed for more pedestrian-friendly events in recent years, such as CicLAvia, as a way of promoting walking and urging residents to drive less.

But taking up a fight to ban right turns on red lights in Los Angeles would be an uphill fight, advocates said.

“Our city is moving in that direction,” said John Yi, executive director of Los Angeles Walks, a nonprofit that works with communities of color to advocate for pedestrian-safe infrastructure. “Is there a chance for this? I think so. But is it going to be easy? I don’t think so.”

Advocates, including Los Angeles Walks, have considered seeking this ban in Los Angeles but have decided to focus on other efforts that they believe could have a more significant effect, Yi said, such as reducing speed limits.

“Any time you try to restrict movement of cars, you have an entrenched electorate that pushes back on that,” he said. “But this is part of a larger ecosystem of changes that need to happen.”

There are some signs of change. In West Hollywood, for example, city officials are looking at a plan that would ban right-hand turns at red lights at the city’s busiest intersections.

“The county as a whole may not be ready, but there should be places where this isn’t a debate anymore,” said West Hollywood Councilmember Chelsea Lee Byers, who proposed the plan.

City officials, at this early stage, haven’t heard opposition to the idea, she said, which she credits in part to the city’s small, pedestrian-friendly size and measures it has already taken to encourage walking.

Still, she agrees that implementing a similar rule countywide would be a challenge.

“It completely speaks to the challenges of breaking through car culture,” she said. “It’s why I see West Hollywood as part of that leadership of mobility justice,” she said, referring to a movement to make streets safer for pedestrians and public transit more accessible.

The city expects to see a report on the measure from city staff and a consulting firm by next year, and she said she hoped the city would extend the proposed ban to other intersections in the future if the level of traffic at those sites increases.

Byers, who said she hadn’t owned a car herself in seven years, said she’d seen firsthand the need for such a measure.

“My right of way as a pedestrian is often challenged by vehicles,” she said. “I’m jealous of San Francisco.”

Right-hand turns on red lights came to be through the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act, Kevitt said, which required states to allow the turns to receive federal funding.

Although the practice has never been found to reduce emissions or gas consumption, the measure was adopted as a way to cut down on idling cars at red lights during the 1970s oil crisis.

“But what we do know is that pedestrians are the ones that are most being hit and killed in traffic violence,” Kevitt said.

It could be a while before a similar measure could be viable in L.A., but Kevitt said it’s time the idea is considered. Smaller cities, such as West Hollywood, would be a start, he said.

“The right to drive is considered more senior than the right to live,” he said. “That needs to change.”

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San Francisco’s downtown economic core has been struggling since the start of the pandemic, and there is one idea to help it that just won’t die: Convert empty office buildings into housing.

The city’s center is dominated by commercial space that remains hollowed out by the ongoing switch to remote work, landing San Francisco at the bottom of metrics for post-pandemic recovery of downtowns nationwide. An influx of people living there, urban planners say, could foster a walkable community with a more sustainable economic ecosystem of new grocery stores, pharmacies and other retail stores in place of businesses that shuttered during the pandemic.

But if creating housing from office space is such a good idea, then why hasn’t it happened? Local developers generally say it’s too expensive and difficult here — even though it can cost less than bottom-up construction in some cases.

It also looked too expensive and difficult in Calgary, Alberta, until the government did something about it. Canadian officials responded to the long-term decline of its business district with a 10-year, $1 billion initiative — equivalent to about $721 million U.S. dollars — to transform the area into a diverse, thriving neighborhood, in large part by funding and fast-tracking projects that convert offices to housing.

Top of story: The Canadian city of Calgary is supporting the conversion of unused office buildings into residential space to help revitalize its downtown core.

Above: A sign advertising office space in the targeted redevelopment zone in downtown Calgary, Alberta.

Amber Bracken / for The Globe and Mail

Similar strategies could help conversions pencil out in San Francisco, local builders say.

“As it stands today, these projects are unfeasible,” speculated Strachan Forgan, principal at SCB, the architecture and design firm for one of the city’s few recent conversions at 100 Van Ness, a 28-story, glass covered building that yielded 418 housing units near City Hall when it was completed in 2015. Projects like that could become more possible if “construction prices fall off a cliff because of the recession — or if the government changes policies” to make them cost less, he said. Efforts to make projects more doable would need to survive the city’s fractious politics, and factor in the major costs to developers of satisfying the city’s affordable-housing requirements.

San Francisco officials have begun openly discussing the possibility of repurposing buildings, though housing is just one potential new use, they say.

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Office conversions are gaining traction in many other cities, including Cleveland and Atlanta, thanks to their potential to breathe life into downtown areas hobbled by the pandemic. In Washington, D.C., the mayor is considering tax and other incentives to make them more feasible.

In New York City, conversions added thousands of residents to lower Manhattan in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, making it the city’s fastest-growing neighborhood. Today office buildings in the Big Apple are once again transforming into homes and a task force is exploring how to make that work easier.

San Francisco’s downtown should follow suit, becoming more than a place where people go to work, said Karen Chapple, director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. Along with colleagues in Toronto and at UC Berkeley, Chapple recently studied cell phone data to measure downtown recoveries in more than 60 North American cities and found San Francisco to be the slowest. Though the streets show signs of renewed life as tourism gradually recovers, recent data shows that San Francisco’s office vacancies have climbed to record highs.

“In the end, San Francisco is going to have to figure out why people should come there,” Chapple said, “and that means rethinking itself entirely, probably.”

The work “can’t be building by building,” Chapple said. Instead, the time is right for a broad initiative that converts buildings, she said, as society learns to live with COVID-19 — an idea endorsed by other urban thinkers and economists.

Between office workers and tourists, San Francisco’s downtown was doing well enough right up to COVID-19’s arrival, though its relative lack of housing made it much less vibrant outside working hours. Many have wondered whether it would bounce back as the threat of the virus receded, but new factors indicate that it won’t. Recent bids for office buildings have been far below seller expectations, and other properties’ owners are applying to have their values adjusted downward, portending widespread drops in the tax revenue that funds public services.

In coming years, the city could find itself in a similar position to Calgary, making the Canadian city’s choices potentially instructive.

The need to be creative

Calgary seeks to revitalize downtown by converting offices into residential units.

Amber Bracken / for The Globe and Mail

Unlike in San Francisco, Calgary’s downtown was long in decline. Energy companies departed after oil prices crashed in 2014, and, when the pandemic spurred remote work, it became clearer that the area would not recover. Falling real estate values meant that if the government didn’t spend money on a long-term solution, it would keep losing tax revenue anyway.

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The government pursued office-to-housing conversions for their dual benefits: reducing the overall supply of office space so that the remainder was more valuable, and increasing the housing supply.

Wary of how difficult and pricey the work could be, officials hired architecture and design firm Gensler, which got its start in San Francisco, to analyze the feasibility of conversions throughout downtown. Gensler identified a pocket of the area where properties seemed suitable, so the government targeted financial and other incentives there, encouraging developers to build the residential foundation of a new community.

Calgary has so far approved about one-quarter of the Greater Downtown Plan’s projected expenditures for about $184 million.

Of the initial outlays, about 40% will help fund office conversions. Each project gets $54 per square foot, up to about $7.2 million without further review from the City Council — two projects have exceeded that, with one scheduled to get about $11 million. To date, five conversions have been approved to create 707 units of housing. The remaining 60% of the approved money will fund major upgrades to local arts venues and revitalize public spaces to make the downtown area more comfortable and attractive to visitors and residents, and to stimulate economic activity.

Before the government’s funding commitment, the projects’ developers found it “difficult to get financing,” said Thom Mahler, director of downtown strategy for Calgary. With the financial incentive, “their pro forma worked,” he said, referring to a document that lays out financial viability.

The money made it possible for developer Peoplefirst to offer 40% of its project’s units at 20% below the current market value, said founder and managing director Maxim Olshevsky. It also gave them the financial breathing room to install balconies and build apartments with no fewer than two bedrooms, rather than cramming more, smaller units in to increase overall rent revenue. The larger units could give families a foothold in the new community — Olshevsky said he wanted to build the kinds of homes he wished he’d had as a teenager, upon immigrating to Calgary from Ukraine.

“My whole family lived in a two-bedroom apartment because we couldn’t get a three-bedroom that we could afford,” he said, “so I slept on the couch.”

Pedestrians ride a scooter in the target zone for redevelopment in downtown Calgary, where the city is converting unused office space to residential units.

Amber Bracken / for The Globe and Mail

The government also sped up the timetables for these projects, in part by waiving one of the major construction permits that can take months to procure. To further quicken things, a new committee worked directly with developers to help them satisfy strict building requirements, which can be difficult for projects that shift a structure’s use. All of this amounts to major savings for developers, Olshevsky said.

“So there’s no delay — you’re having a conversation with a decision maker who can get it approved, or tell you, ‘OK, you’re trying something too creative here, do it like this,’” Olshevsky said. “That’s huge.”

Thanks to the help, Olshevsky hopes the project — offering 112 housing units, with ground-floor retail and co-working spaces on the second story — will be finished by October 2023, with all units leased by the end of that year.

The project’s total estimated “hard costs,” or materials plus labor, came out to $131,020 per residential unit. After including “soft costs” — things like planning and management, or developer overhead — the price was equal to $177,670. That omits the cost to buy the building.

By comparison, the price per residential unit for 100 Van Ness in San Francisco was $311,000, including only hard costs, said Tim Vrabel, principal and chief financial officer for developer Emerald Fund. Those costs would be much higher in today’s market, he said. He did not provide soft costs, which he said were “highly variable, project to project” and might be equivalent to 40% to 70% of hard costs, depending on how the developer chose to satisfy the city’s affordable housing requirements.

The cost of conversion depends on the target building, which must fit many criteria for a project to be worth doing.

Newer and high-end office buildings are generally not suitable for two big reasons: They’re still in demand, leaving little financial incentive to convert them to homes. And they tend to have bigger footprints, with expansive floors that are difficult to separate into apartments with comfortable, attractive layouts.

Instead, older and lower-end buildings are best. But even then, the question is not whether one is largely empty — as many in San Francisco’s downtown are — but whether floors are still leased to commercial tenants.

“What if they find an office building that’s 87% leased for the next 10 years? What do you do with that?” said Trey Clark, chief investment officer for Vanke US, a real estate investment company.

The complexities of the S.F. market

In its redevelopment zone, Calgary is working with developers to improve the process of converting office spaces into residential units.

Amber Bracken / for The Globe and Mail

Every conversion is a major undertaking, partly because no two are the same.

Living spaces need access to light and fresh air, which might call for installing ventilation systems, replacing the exterior so that previously sealed windows can open, or even carving away sections of the building to improve the design. Plumbing and electrical systems must reroute from large, congregate areas to each new apartment or condo. With the change in use, an older building may suddenly need major seismic upgrades or fire safety systems. Elevators or stairs may need to be built, or ripped out and relocated. Every alteration bumps up the price tag.

“There’s a thousand things to analyze,” said Michael Covarrubias, chairman and CEO of TMG Partners, a Bay Area developer with experience in conversions. And new design obstacles can surface after builders tear into the structure. “There can be a surprise a minute,” he said, increasing costs.

In buildings more amenable to conversions, construction is generally faster and per-unit costs are about 30% lower than demolishing the structure and building apartments from the ground up, according to research by Emil Malizia, a professor specializing in real estate development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

About 25% to 30% of the hundreds of buildings that Gensler has analyzed across North America have made good candidates for conversion, a spokesperson said in June. And San Francisco’s downtown has buildings that could work, said Manan Shah, principal at the company’s Oakland office.

“It’s a pretty mixed market,” Shah said. “A lot of historic buildings, a lot of development that happened in the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s.”

Elevated construction costs have helped bog down real estate development in the city. And with office property generally more valuable than residential, developers are hesitant to do conversions and take a potential net financial loss.

That’s where the government could tip the scales, some say.

Conversions would be subject to the city’s affordable housing laws, which require that developers of large projects either pay a fee or incur long-term costs by setting aside some apartments for tenants in low income brackets. A project that included affordable housing on site would rent about one-fifth of its units to households earning 55% to 110% of the local median income, which is $97,000 for someone living alone.

The Cornerstone affordable housing office conversion is in the beginning stages of construction in downtown Calgary.

Amber Bracken / for The Globe and Mail

Maybe the city could cut that unit requirement in half, said Forgan, of SCB architects. A milder reduction helped the numbers work for the 100 Van Ness project.

Real estate experts said the city could make financing conversions easier by reducing impact fees or giving developers more time to pay them. Or the city could directly contribute money, like Calgary did.

Also, like Calgary, San Francisco’s government could waive certain permits and work directly with builders to clear bureaucratic hurdles quickly. Or it could exempt conversions from “discretionary review,” said Clark of Vanke, a process that lets officials and members of the public challenge aspects of the project, delaying it and costing the developer money. Conversions could also draw less objection than new construction in established neighborhoods.

No coming back from office conversions

Calgary is supporting the conversion of unused office buildings into residential space to help revitalize the downtown core.

Amber Bracken / for The Globe and Mail

As San Francisco’s downtown has limped along, the idea of converting buildings there to housing has remained resilient and contagious, shared among developers and frequently surfacing in news stories.

In fact, Forgan recently fielded an inquiry from Emerald Fund about an office property fresh on the market.

“Hey, we’re trying to figure out if this building makes sense for residential conversion,” Forgan’s contact told him. Some quick math revealed that the numbers weren’t good enough. When asked if government interventions could make conversions worth Emerald Fund’s while, President Marc Babsin said, “Any little bit helps.”

San Francisco officials are weighing whether to help conversions happen — but not just to create new housing. If vacant downtown buildings, instead, received industries that diversified the local economy, it could guard against a repeat of what happened during the pandemic: An overreliance on tech and other highly professionalized workforces crippled the area when they departed, in what could be an early step toward citywide financial downturn.

“Say, for example, we pursued conversions from office to lab space, or to light manufacturing,” said Jeff Cretan, spokesperson for Mayor London Breed. “Because San Francisco is situated as an economic center, in a technology-rich, university-rich area, there could be alternatives to what happened in Calgary.”

And if the goal were to produce homes downtown, it might be better to identify approved office projects that haven’t begun and let them become housing instead, said Rich Hillis, director of the San Francisco Planning Department.

“Once an office is converted, there is no converting it back,” Gloria Chan, spokesperson for the Office of Economic and Workforce Development, cautioned in an email. “Our Economic Core is the only part of the city where we are allowed to have offices and moving away from this too prematurely can have implications that include the loss of business and the revenue that goes with them.”

Pedestrians in the target zone for redevelopment in downtown Calgary, Alberta, Canada, on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. The City of Calgary is supporting the conversion of unused office buildings into residential space, to help revitalize the downtown core. Amber Bracken for San Francisco Chronicle

Amber Bracken / Special to The Chronicle

A sign advertising office space across the street from the Cornerstone affordable housing office conversion in downtown Calgary, Alberta, Canada, on Wednesday, October 12, 2022. The City of Calgary is supporting the conversion of unused office buildings into residential space, to help revitalize the downtown core. Amber Bracken for San Francisco Chronicle

Amber Bracken / Special to The Chronicle

Left: Pedestrians in the target zone for redevelopment in downtown Calgary. Right: A sign advertising office space across the street from the Cornerstone affordable housing office conversion. Photos by Amber Bracken / Special to The Chronicle
Top: Pedestrians in the target zone for redevelopment in downtown Calgary. Above: A sign advertising office space across the street from the Cornerstone affordable housing office conversion. Photos by Amber Bracken / Special to The Chronicle

To help officials weigh the many ideas to save downtown, the office is commissioning studies on the pandemic’s local impacts, shifts in key industries, and how San Francisco might compete with other cities to attract and retain businesses, Chan said. The office is scheduled to spend $64.2 million over the next two years on citywide pandemic recovery efforts that include helping businesses, holding recurring events downtown and other efforts to spur foot traffic.

If downtown received more housing, it might help San Francisco satisfy the state’s mandate to build more than 82,000 housing units by 2030.

But tenant advocates have been hesitant to say that the government should help market-rate developers build homes for high earners. New policies should result in housing that’s permanently set aside for lower-income tenants, said Joseph Smooke, community organizer with the Race & Equity in All Planning Coalition, which advocates for building affordable housing.

“We’ve got to deal with reality. We need affordable housing, and the market’s not producing it,” Smooke said. “It needs to come from the city really being innovative and bold.”

Growing a new community

The Neoma project, an affordable housing conversion office space in downtown Calgary, is an example of how the city is supporting the conversion of unused office buildings into residential spaces.

Amber Bracken / for The Globe and Mail

Back in Calgary in late September, a building that was formerly the headquarters for Dome Petroleum finished its transformation into housing. Though not officially part of the Greater Downtown Plan, the Neoma project falls within its focus area and will help a new community grow there.

“Now there’s 82 apartment units, family shelter, supports and amenities in the building that was once mostly cubicles,” tweeted developer HomeSpace Society.

Other Twitter users were generally jubilant. One summed up a widespread sentiment: “Congratulations! This is such a great project. Hope it catches on in other cities.”

Noah Arroyo is The San Francisco Chronicle’s SFNext lead reporter. Email: noah.arroyo@sfchronicle.com

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WASHINGTON (CBS SF / AP) – House spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi pushed back on Friday against Archbishop of San Francisco Salvatore Joseph Cordileone for his outspoken criticism of COVID-related restrictions on worship by California health officials.

Pelosi, a San Francisco Bay Area Catholic, said she missed going to Sunday mass but criticized the archbishop’s recent protest restrictions on larger public gatherings. She said he shouldn’t endanger people’s lives.

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“With all due respect to my Archbishop, I think we should pursue science in this regard,” Pelosi said.

Indoor services are currently banned in San Francisco and there is a strict 12-person limit for outdoor services.

The right to worship has become a touchstone in the debate over state and local rules to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Archbishop Cordileone said the rights of worshipers were “wrongly suppressed” by the government. Several churches nationwide are suing to stop restrictions.

“We recognize that the government has the right to make adequate public health regulations,” he wrote in the Washington Post. “But when the government asserts authority over the church’s right to worship, it is crossing a line.”

Pelosi said she recently attended an outdoor personal service in San Francisco and received communion – she picked up the waffle from the priest as allowed instead of having it put directly on her tongue. She regularly joins online services.

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The San Francisco Bay Area Democrat said she had to register in advance to attend and found that about a dozen people had spread by the time she arrived.

“Very, very, very far apart,” she said.

She asked if the archbishop’s message had been misunderstood.

“I’m sure he must have meant if it is scientifically safe, rather than endangering people’s health, if they want to go to church,” she said.

Pelosi noted that belief and science are sometimes at odds.

“Here people say to me: You are a person of faith, why do you believe in science?” She said.

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“I say I believe science is an answer to our prayers. It is a creation of God and an answer to our prayers. “

The post San Francisco Archbishop Ought to ‘Observe Science’ When It Comes To COVID-19 Worship Restrictions – CBS San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

RIDGECREST, Calif. (AP) – Officials in Southern California on Saturday expressed relief that damage and injuries were no worse after the largest earthquake in the area in nearly 20 years, and expressed concerns about the possibility of larger aftershocks in days and even months come.

There were no deaths or serious injuries following the 7.1 magnitude earthquake on Friday night that struck an area from Sacramento to Mexico and resulted in the evacuation of the Navy’s largest single land holding, Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in the Mojave Desert reported.

The quake hit Friday at 8:19 p.m. and was located 11 miles from Ridgecrest, the same area of ​​the desert where a 6.4 magnitude tremor had occurred the day before. It left cracked and burning buildings, broken roads, clogged railroad tracks, and leaking water and gas pipes.

Most of the light damage was due to the removal of the area where the tremor occurred. Only 28,000 people live in the Ridgecrest region, which lies between more populous areas of Southern California and Clark County, Las Vegas.

However, seismologists warned that up to 30,000 aftershocks could occur in the region over the next six months.

April Hamlin said she was “already nervous” after Thursday’s quake when the second shook her home in Ridgecrest. She and her three children initially thought it was another aftershock.

“But it just kept intensifying,” she said. “The TV went over and hung on the cord. We heard it break. We heard broken glass in the other rooms, but we could only stay where we were until it stopped. “

With the possibility of aftershocks and temperatures expected to reach 100 degrees (38 degrees Celsius) in the next few days, officials took precautionary measures.

The California National Guard sent 200 soldiers, logistical support and aircraft, Maj. General David Baldwin said. The Pentagon has been notified and the entire California Department of Military has been put on alert, he said.

China Lake Navy Air Force Station said in a Facebook post that unneeded workers have been evacuated and operations have ceased. Officials said the station was “not operational until further notice”. The Facebook post did not contain any details about damage.

The California Emergency Services Bureau brought cots, water and meals and set up refrigeration centers in the area, Director Mark Ghilarducci said.

State Highway officials closed a 30-mile stretch of State Route 178 between Ridgecrest and the town of Trona, southwest of Death Valley, due to a rock fall and severe cracks. The move left Trona temporarily interrupted. California Department of Transportation spokeswoman Christine Knadler said crews worked all night mending the pavement, but it remained rough and uneven. A $ 3 million emergency contract has been approved for repairs, she said.

51-year-old Ron Mikulaco and his nephew, 23-year-old Brad Fernandez, stood on 178 on Saturday looking at the cracks in the street. The couple drove from Huntington Beach, about 274 kilometers southwest of Ridgecrest. Mikulaco, an amateur geologist, wanted to show his nephew “the power of Mother Nature,” and they had the longitude and latitude coordinates of the epicenter ready.

“We’ll put that in the GPS and we’ll get as close as possible,” Fernandez said.

In Ridgecrest, local fire and police officers said they were initially inundated with calls to medical services and ambulances. But Police Chief Jed McLaughlin said there was “nothing but minor injuries such as cuts and bruises by the grace of God”.

McLaughlin said two building fires – one involving a motor home – were quickly extinguished and natural gas pipelines that were reported to be leaking were shut down.

According to firefighters, up to 50 buildings were damaged in Trona, a town of around 2,000 people that is considered the gateway to Death Valley. Robert Lovingood, head of the San Bernardino county, announced on Saturday that FEMA had delivered an articulated truck with bottled water due to damage to the water pipes. Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for the San Bernardino county, where Trona is located.

Julia Doss, who maintains the Trona Neighborhood Watch page on Facebook, said the only grocery store in town was a Family Dollar store, which closed on Saturday.

“The only way to get food is to go to Ridgecrest. With only three gas stations in town, I’m worried we’ll run out of fuel soon,” said Doss.

Antoun Abdullatif, 59, owns liquor stores and other businesses in Ridgecrest and Trona.

“I would say 70% of my inventory is broken on the floor,” he said. “Every time you sweep and throw things in the trash, you throw $ 200 in the trash.”

But he has stopped cleaning up and believes another earthquake is on the way.

“We’re waiting, but I hope it doesn’t come,” he said.

Lucy Jones, a seismologist at the California Institute of Technology and a former scientific advisor with the US Geological Survey, said the new quake likely erupted along a fault line about 25 miles long and was part of an ongoing sequence. The seismic activity is unlikely to affect the fault lines outside the area, Jones said, noting that the gigantic fault is far away from San Andreas.

Egill Hauksson, another Caltech seismologist, said later in the day that scientists believe the continued sequence could generate more than 30,000 magnitude 1 or greater quakes over six months. He said the chance of a magnitude 7 is about 3% the next week, but a magnitude 6 quake or two is expected.

In Los Angeles, 150 miles away, the second quake struck Dodger Stadium in the fourth inning of the team’s game against the San Diego Padres. But the game went on and the Padres won 3-2.

“Not many people can say they threw a strike during an earthquake,” Eric Lauer, who was on the hill at the time, said later. “My ball, my playing field, caused an earthquake.”

___

Antczak reported from Los Angeles. Nguyen reported from San Francisco. Associate Press Writer Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, Brady McCombs in Salt Lake City, Julia Williams in San Francisco, Adam Beam in Sacramento, Stefanie Dazio and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles, Tarek Hamada in Phoenix, sports journalist Beth Harris in Los Angeles and Associated Press freelancer Jolene Latimer in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Eugene Johnson, right, looks down at the chimney that collapsed in an earthquake at his home in Trona, California on Saturday, July 6, 2019. The southern California crews assessed damage to cracked and burned buildings, broken roads, leaking water and gas pipes, and other infrastructure Saturday after the largest earthquake the region has seen in nearly 20 years struck an area from Sacramento to Las Vegas to Mexico .

Katherine Johnson-Coates stands in front of a neighbour’s burned-down mobile home after an earthquake on Saturday, July 6, 2019, in Ridgecrest, California. The southern California crews assessed damage to cracked and burned buildings, broken roads, leaking water and gas pipes, and other infrastructure on Saturday after the largest earthquake the region has seen in nearly 20 years, an area stretched from Sacramento to Las Vegas to Mexico shocked.

A crack can be seen in the driveway of a gas station following an earthquake on Saturday, July 6, 2019 in Trona, California. The southern California crews assessed damage to cracked and burned buildings, broken roads, leaking water and gas pipes, and other infrastructure on Saturday after the largest earthquake the region has seen in nearly 20 years, an area from Sacramento to Las Vegas to Mexico shocked.

Ron Mikulaco (right) and his nephew Brad Fernandez investigate a crack caused by an earthquake on Highway 178 on Saturday, July 6, 2019, outside of Ridgecrest, California. Southern California crews assessed damage to cracked and burned buildings and broken roads Leaking water, gas and other infrastructure struck an area from Sacramento to Las Vegas to Mexico on Saturday after the largest earthquake in the region in nearly 20 years.

Bottles of wine are strewn down the middle of an aisle as Victor Abdullatif, Background Center, wipes pugs at his family’s Eastridge Market, Saturday, July 6, 2019 in Ridgecrest, Calif. The southern California crews assessed the damage to cracks and burned buildings, broken roads, leaking water and gas pipes and other infrastructure traced an area from Sacramento to Las Vegas on Saturday after the largest earthquake the region has seen in nearly 20 years Mexico shakes.

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