A magnitude 4.2 earthquake centered near the Santa Cruz-Monterey county border woke residents up across the Bay Area early Sunday morning.
The earthquake, at 2:47 a.m., occurred along the San Andreas Fault at a depth of 4.2 miles in a rural area along Highway 129 about six miles east of Watsonville and seven miles south of Gilroy.
It was the largest earthquake in the greater Bay Area region in nearly two years, since a 5.1 quake happened Oct. 25, 2022, with its epicenter in Joseph D. Grant County Park in the hills east of San Jose.
There were no reports of damage from Sunday morning’s quake, authorities said. But the event was felt widely across the Bay Area, in San Jose, the East Bay, San Francisco, and even Santa Rosa, according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s website.
“It definitely woke me up,” said Ryan Stirm, owner of Stirm Winery, in Aromas, near the epicenter. “The first couple of seconds were the strongest, and then there was low-level shaking. We didn’t have any damage. But it was loud. I don’t wake up that easily. It was like a slow grinding.”
Stirm said the quake made him think of the Loma Prieta Earthquake. That quake, a 6.9 magnitude disaster that struck on Oct. 17, 1989, killed 63 people and caused $6 billion in damage. It wrecked the Marina District in San Francisco, collapsed the Cypress Freeway in Oakland, and devastated downtown Santa Cruz and Watsonville. It was the largest quake to hit the Bay Area region since the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.
Its upcoming 35th anniversary — and Sunday’s modest quake — should be a reminder that California is earthquake country, authorities said Sunday.
“It’s always important to be prepared for earthquakes,” said Andy Rosas, a spokesman for the Monterey County Sheriff’s Department.
He recommended that residents update their earthquake kits and make a communication plan for their families.
“During the Loma Prieta quake, nobody was prepared,” Rosas said. “You just never know when they are going to happen. The better prepared you are, the better things will go.”
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