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The view from the hill in San Francisco hit by an earthquake today (stock image)

An earthquake shook San Francisco. People reported buildings shaking and being roused from their sleep.

The magnitude 3.5 earthquake was “felt in large parts of the bay,” according to Dr. Judith Hubbard of Cornell Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

Seismic maps show it occurred 11 miles south of the large northern California city. AccuWeather reported that it hit just after 6 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, or 2 p.m. GMT.

A local resident tweeted that she felt the tremor in the South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood of San Francisco and was awakened by it.

@jamiedsongs tweeted, “I felt it in SoMa. A jolt and a tremor. I *just* fell asleep!”

Did you feel the earth tremble? Are you affected by the quake? Email webnews@mirror.co.uk

The place of the quake

Journalist Susan Dyer Reynolds tweeted that “the quake felt stronger here in west San Francisco.”

But she added: “I was born and raised here so the under-five earthquakes don’t upset me too much (if you were here for the 1989 quake, you know how a ‘big’ feels like). The aftershocks are scary though.”

@TatjanaOdineca said it “felt like the wall of the building had been hit by a giant ball”.

@clintcardoza7 wrote: “My dog ​​and I felt a strong jolt in San Francisco. Very scary and strong jerk!”

The quake spread across the entire bay

Earthquake monitor EMSC has shared a map showing “eyewitness-reported local shaking and damage levels.”

The affected region was reported to be the San Francisco Bay Area and the depth of the quake was 9 km.

@HeezNews tweeted, “6am earthquake alert felt in south San Francisco,” while @ElJaguarVR wrote, “It was felt here in San Francisco less than 2 minutes ago. Strong jerk.”

@jcb10 said it was “a sudden jerk and three seconds of shaking”.

@CryptoMrW joked, “I just woke up from my first ever earthquake in San Francisco. I’m going back to Ohio where the ground stays still and people are moving.”

The San Andreas Fault is nearby and was the origin of the famous 1906 San Francisco earthquake that killed more than 3,000 people and destroyed over 80% of the city.

A 6.1 magnitude earthquake hit the northern Japanese city of Aomori today.

Fortunately, no tsunami warning was issued and Japanese media reported no damage or injuries.

The quake in Japan occurred at a depth of 20 km and occurred at 18:18 local time or 9:18 GMT.

California lies on the San Andreas Fault, which forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, two of the large moving plates that make up the Earth’s crust.

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fires that followed devastated the city.

In 1989, a major earthquake struck San Francisco, killing nine people and injuring hundreds.

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HAYWARD, Calif. (KRON) – Predicting where and when the next “big one” will hit the San Francisco Bay Area is a difficult task for seismologists. Five major fault lines traverse the Bay Area: San Andreas, Calaveras, San Gregorio, Hayward, and Rodgers Creek.

A fault is defined by the US Geological Survey as “a fracture or zone of fracture between two blocks of rock.” Errors allow the blocks to move relative to each other. This movement can be rapid in the form of an earthquake – or slow in the form of creep.”

Without sufficient creep, pressure builds up until an earthquake occurs.

Tuesday’s 5.1-magnitude earthquake originated on the Calaveras Fault and had its epicenter east of San Jose. Luckily, San Jose escaped without significant damage or injury. Still, the USGS warns, “We live in an earthquake country and we should all be prepared for the next big quake.”

The main Bay Area fault lines (image courtesy of USGS)

Which Bay Area fault will rupture next with a major earthquake?

“The Hayward Fault will erupt violently again, and perhaps soon,” USGS scientists wrote in their 2018 study. “The fault could be poised to trigger another 6.8 to 7.0 magnitude earthquake.”

Seismic waves from the Hayward Fault triggered a powerful earthquake on October 21, 1868. His strength was estimated at 6.8. Since seismographs were not yet invented, there are no records of the quake.

“The 1868 Hayward Fault earthquake is a reminder of the tremendous force lurking beneath the earth’s surface in the San Francisco Bay Area,” USGS scientists wrote.

“The strong shaking lasted more than 40 seconds and devastated several towns in the East Bay. Brick buildings, walls, and chimneys also collapsed in Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, and San Jose, and there was severe damage in Napa and Hollister. Numerous witnesses reported that the ground moved in waves. Aftershocks shook the Bay Area for weeks. Although the region was sparsely populated at the time, the 1868 quake killed about 30 people,” USGS scientists wrote.

In 1868, only about 24,000 people lived in Alameda County. Today, the county has a population of 2.4 million, making the Hayward Fault the most urbanized earthquake fault in the United States.

The 1868 Hayward Fault earthquake caused the second story collapse of the Alameda County Courthouse in San Leandro (photo courtesy Bancroft Library, University of California).

The Bay Area’s most famous fault is the San Andreas Fault. It was responsible for both the Great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989.

Like the 1868 Hayward Fault tremor, Loma Prieta’s magnitude 6.9 rocked the ground dramatically. The epicenter of the quake was in the Santa Cruz Mountains along the San Andreas Fault. Violent shaking lasted 15 seconds. On October 17, 1989, freeways collapsed and buildings collapsed on victims. Some residents were so scared that they did not return to their homes for weeks, sleeping outside on mattresses or in tents. More than 60 deaths were directly caused by the quake and almost 4,000 victims were injured.

Buildings collapsed along the Pacific Garden Mall in Santa Cruz in 1989. (Photo by USGS)

The great 1906 San Francisco earthquake had a catastrophic magnitude of 7.9. Massive fires broke out in San Francisco. Earth shook from the San Andreas Fault with so much energy it was felt from Los Angeles to Oregon. “Violent shaking underscored the strong shaking that lasted about 45 to 60 seconds,” the USGS wrote. Hundreds of victims were killed.

Prior to Tuesday, the last notable Calaveras Fault earthquake occurred around the same time of year, in October 2007, when the magnitude 5.4 quake ruptured the alum rock. Calaveras also caused the 1984 magnitude 6.2 Morgan Hill earthquake.

The Working Group for California Earthquake Probability has given an 11% chance that the Calaveras Fault would produce a magnitude 6.7 earthquake or greater within the next 30 years.

Why does California have so many earthquakes? The answer can be traced back to 200 million years ago.

The USGS states: “This region of the United States has been tectonically active since the supercontinent Pangea broke up about 200 million years ago, in large part because it lies close to the western boundary of the North American Plate. Since the formation of the San Andreas fault system 25 to 30 million years ago, the juxtaposition of the Pacific and North American plates in California has created many faults that allow lateral movement between the plates.”

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SAN FRANCISCO — Downtown shops and businesses play a vital role in boosting San Francisco’s economy, but they’ve been slow to recover from the pandemic blues.

It’s not a scenario shared by many inner cities across the country.

dr Karen Chapple is Professor Emeritus at UC Berkeley and Director of the School of Cities at the University of Toronto. She and a team of researchers run the Urban Displacement Project, which tracks how much activity takes place in inner cities. They analyze cell phone data, not just office vacancy rates, to compare current population patterns with pre-pandemic numbers.

“We look at everyone who comes downtown,” she said. “If you have the right mix of industries, you’re doing pretty well right now. But if you were too specialized, you could suffer.”

Of the 62 cities they tracked, San Francisco consistently ranks at the bottom of the list when it comes to recreation.

“San Francisco was at 30% of its pre-pandemic activity as of March 16, 2020. March 2022, November 2022 still at 30% of its pre-pandemic activity,” she said.

One reason Chapple points to is San Francisco’s heavy reliance on the tech industry, whose workers largely left home early in the pandemic and have not made a robust return.

Jeffrey Woo, who owns Il Canto Cafe in San Francisco’s Financial District, had to change his business model to adapt.

He took over the breakfast and lunch spot a few months before the pandemic, with plans to cater to the office mass at FiDi

“That was the plan,” he said. “It was pretty crowded then. Now it’s a different crowd.”

Woo gets some face-to-face business but says he’s focused on a lot of online and delivery app orders.

“It’s gotten a lot better, but it’s taking a long time,” he said.

According to a CBS News analysis of San Francisco job trend data from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis from 2019 to 2021:

— Jobs in the lodging and hospitality industry fell 41%
— Wholesale jobs fell 25%
— Utilities jobs up 11%
— Information industry jobs up 9%

Looking at a chart showing the project’s data, Chapple described San Francisco as “stuck.”

CBS News Bay Area asked the Mayor of London Breed if she agreed with that assessment.

“San Francisco is not stuck. San Francisco is just different,” she said.

Breed recently announced their “Roadmap to Downtown San Francisco’s Future” which consists of 9 strategies and nearly 50 initiatives.

These are the strategies according to the plan:

1. Make sure downtown is clean, safe, and welcoming.
2. Attracting and retaining a wide range of industries and employers
3. Enable new uses and flexibility in buildings
4. Make it easier to start and grow a business
5. Grow and prepare our workforce
6. Transform Downtown into a premier destination for arts, culture and nightlife
7. Enhance public spaces to showcase downtown
8. Invest in transport links
9. Tell our story

“I think it’s important to make sure there’s a layered approach. There’s not one thing that’s going to bring our downtown back, it’s going to be a number of things,” Breed said. “And of course we need our legislature, the board of directors, as a partner in this effort. So we worked with members of the board of directors, worked with business people and developed solutions and strategies. ”

Measures include tax breaks and initiatives aimed at creating incentives for companies to stay here and come here.

“Part of what I’m pushing for in some of my tax initiatives is that some of the existing companies delay changing the gross receipts tax so people’s taxes don’t double by June of this year,” Breed said. “We’re deferring that for another two years to try and encourage companies to stay with us, work with us, and continue in San Francisco.”

“But for these new companies, we’re saying, look, you’re coming to San Francisco — three years. Three years you don’t have to pay city taxes to get started and get started and grow your business. This is a way to generate interest in new businesses and help with many new startups and the diverse businesses looking to grow and thrive in our city.”

Another part of their plan involves a change in downtown zoning to facilitate the conversion of office space into apartments.

“So we rezoned the entire downtown area so now we have the ability to convert without having to go through a lengthy year- or even two-year process to change a space’s use,” Breed said. “You can do this automatically through a simpler process that takes less time. That doesn’t mean it happens automatically, but it’s just an easier adjustment that takes less time.”

The biggest challenge right now, Breed said, is public safety.

“We know this is a struggle and we know we need more officers because we are short of just over 500 police officers, not to mention the people who are leaving the department to go to other places as well as the people who are retiring,” she said. “So we need to do something aggressive in terms of public safety to put things in a better place.”

Another major challenge that she acknowledged?

“The other thing that’s obviously very challenging is the cleanliness and road conditions in certain parts of the city where people are just frustrated,” she said. “We are dedicating a lot of resources to cleaning up these areas. You can clean up the entire tenderloin in the morning where these teams are out there and then before 12:00 it looks like nothing ever happened.”

“So we not only have to deal with the people that we have out there cleaning the streets, but also with the behavior and challenges of the people that are causing the problem in the first place.”

We asked Breed what obstacles she expects to encounter as she tries to fulfill her roadmap.

“Well, I mean, the board of directors is — some of them can be quite challenging, and that’s going to be a really heavy overhaul,” she said. “For example, I presented the board with an additional budget of $27.6 million for the police, for overtime, but overtime to cover the bases.”

“We have stations that are underutilized. To ensure we still turn in these shifts, we have to work overtime to cover the basic needs of our city. We have some board members who may or may not vote to support something like this.”

Despite the challenges, Breed is optimistic about the future of San Francisco.

“We’re moving forward, we’re aggressive and we’re going to make the city even better than ever,” she said.

Back at Il Canto Café, Woo says unless things really improve downtown, he’s not sure he can stay in business there.

“If I start hearing that the occupancy rate goes down to 10% or 5%, we’re going to get pretty worried and have to move somewhere else,” he said.

However, he has no plans to leave San Francisco.

“I grew up here since I was four years old,” he said. “This is the right place.”

Max Darrow

Max Darrow is an Emmy Award-winning reporter/MMJ for KPIX 5. He joined the KPIX 5 news team in July 2021.

The post Will San Francisco’s downtown shake off the pandemic blues? appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

HAYWARD, Calif. (KRON) — Predicting where and when the next “big one” will strike the San Francisco Bay Area is a tough task for seismologists. Five major fault lines cross the Bay Area: San Andreas, Calaveras, San Gregorio, Hayward and Rodgers Creek.

A fault is defined by the US Geological Survey as “a fracture or zone of fractures between two blocks of rock. Faults allow the blocks to move relative to each other. This movement may occur rapidly, in the form of an earthquake – or may occur slowly, in the form of creep.”

Without enough creeping, pressure will build up until an earthquake results.

Tuesday’s 5.1 magnitude earthquake originated from the Calaveras Fault and its epicenter was just east of San Jose. Fortunately, San Jose emerged without significant damages nor injuries. Still, the USGS cautions, “we live in earthquake country and we should all be prepared for the next big quake.”

The Bay Area’s major fault lines (Image courtesy USGS)

Which Bay Area fault will rupture with a major earthquake, next?

“The Hayward Fault will rupture violently again, and perhaps soon,” USGS scientists wrote in its 2018 study. “The fault may be ready to produce another magnitude 6.8 to 7.0 earthquake.”

Seismic waves from the Hayward Fault unleashed a powerful earthquake on October 21, 1868. Its magnitude was estimated to be 6.8. Because seismographs had not yet been invented, there are no recordings of the quake.

“The 1868 Hayward Fault earthquake is a reminder of the tremendous power that lurks beneath the Earth’s surface in the San Francisco Bay region,” USGS scientists wrote.

“Strong shaking lasted more than 40 seconds, devastating several East Bay towns. Brick buildings, walls, and chimneys were also shaken down in Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Rosa, and San Jose, and there was serious damage in Napa and Hollister. Numerous witnesses reported seeing the ground move in waves. Aftershocks rattled the Bay Area for weeks. Even though the region was only sparsely populated at the time, the1868 quake killed about 30 people,” USGS scientists wrote.

In 1868, there were only about 24,000 residents living in Alameda County. Today, the county has 2.4 million, making the Hayward Fault the single-most urbanized earthquake fault in the United States.

The 1868 Hayward Fault earthquake caused the second story of the Alameda County Courthouse in San Leandro to collapse (Photo courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California)

The Bay Area’s most famous fault is the San Andreas Fault. It was responsible for both the Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.

Like the Hayward Fault 1868 quake, Loma Prieta’s 6.9 magnitude also caused the ground to dramatically roll. The quake’s epicenter was located in the Santa Cruz mountains along the San Andreas fault. Fierce shaking lasted for 15 seconds. On October 17, 1989, freeways collapsed and buildings caved in on top of victims. Some residents were so terrified that they would not re-enter their homes for weeks, and slept outside on mattresses or in tents. More than 60 deaths were directly caused by the quake and nearly 4,000 victims were injured.

Buildings collapsed along the Pacific Garden Mall in Santa Cruz in 1989. (Photo by USGS)

The Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake had a catastrophic magnitude of 7.9. Massive fires ignited in San Francisco. The earth shook with so much energy from the San Andreas fault that it was felt from Los Angeles to Oregon. “Violent shocks punctuated the strong shaking which lasted some 45 to 60 seconds,” the USGS wrote. Hundreds of victims were killed.

Before Tuesday, the Calaveras Fault’s last notable earthquake happened around this same time of year, October of 2007, when the 5.4 magnitude Alum Rock quake ruptured. Calaveras also generated the 6.2 magnitude Morgan Hill earthquake in 1984.

The Working Group for California Earthquake Probability assigned an 11% probability that the Calaveras Fault would produce a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake in the next 30 years.

Why does California have so many earthquakes? The answer can be traced back to 200 million years ago.

The USGS explains, “This region of the United States has been tectonically active since the supercontinent Pangea broke up roughly 200 million years ago, and in large part because it is close to the western boundary of the North American plate. Since the formation of the San Andreas Fault system 25-30 million years ago, the juxtaposition of the Pacific and North American plates has formed many faults in California that accommodate lateral motion between the plates.”

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