Aug 9, 2007 4:54 pm US/Pacific
Southland Shakes, Rattles, Rolls With 4.6 Quake
CHATSWORTH, Calif. (CBS) ―
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The Whites Canyon bridge in Santa Clarita suffered two cracks in the quake.
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The bridge remained closed Thursday.
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The magnitude 4.5 earthquake struck just before 1 a.m. about 4 miles from Chatsworth.
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Three small aftershocks followed the quake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
CBS
A magnitude-4.6 earthquake struck the Southland Thursday, setting off hundreds of alarms and prompting the temporary closure of a bridge in Santa Clarita, but no injuries were reported.
The quake, centered four miles north-northwest of Chatsworth, struck at 12:58 a.m., followed by three small aftershocks, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.
The bridge on Whites Canyon Road between Soledad Canyon Road and Via Princessa was ordered closed early this morning after two cracks were found, said Lt. Diane Walker of the Santa Clarita sheriff's station.
The bridge was reopened about noon. Santa Clarita's city engineer, Damon Letz, said there was no structural damage to the six-lane, 300-foot-long span.
"The bridge did what it was designed to do," Letz said. "It expanded at the expansion joints, allowing for movement of the structure without causing any issues."
No other bridges in the city had any problems, he said.
The quake was originally reported at magnitude-4.5, but the USGS later revised the measurement to magnitude-4.6.
Aftershocks included a magnitude-1.6 temblor at 1:14 a.m., one of the same magnitude at 1:49 a.m., and one measuring 1.8 at 2:49 a.m. -- all within three miles of the initial quake's epicenter, according to the USGS, and all too small to be felt.
"It's good, actually, that we have these type of earthquakes that wake people up and get them excited, because that makes them think, `Well maybe I should renew the supplies in my earthquake kit, or maybe I should bolt the bookcases to the wall or take down this glass picture over my bed,' or ... something that might save their life or make life a lot easier when we do have the big one," Caltech seismologist Kate Hutton said.
Shaking was reported from as far away from the epicenter as Marina del Rey, Lancaster, downtown Los Angeles, Simi Valley and Oxnard.
In the hours following the shaker, the Los Angeles Times received 90 pages of comments on a message board from residents, many of them unable to go back to sleep.
"Here in Thousand Oaks it just felt like a quick jolt, like the bed falling out from underneath me. Certainly the biggest one I've felt since '94 though," wrote 'Kevin,' referring to the magnitude-6.7 Northridge earthquake of Jan. 17, 1994, which was blamed for 72 deaths, more than 10,000 injuries and $12.5 billion in damages.
Hundreds of car, home and business alarms went off in the Chatsworth area, and some San Fernando Valley-area residents called radio stations to report that things had been knocked off walls in their homes. One man told KNX 1070 Newsradio that his home office had been "thrashed."
The alarms prompted officers to rush to local businesses to check for burglars, said a sergeant at the Los Angeles Police Department's Devonshire Station.
The Los Angeles Fire Department remained in normal operating mode.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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