Eureka officials estimate $14.3 million in damage from big earthquake; no county estimate yet

Eureka damage at $14.3 million from big earthquake

EUREKA, Calif. — California officials on Monday were still tallying damage estimates from a powerful earthquake that struck Humboldt County over the weekend, with only the city of Eureka so far providing a figure.

Eureka, the largest Northern California city affected by Saturday’s magnitude-6.5 quake, estimated the damage on Monday to 175 buildings at $14.3 million, Gary Bird, a spokesman for the city said. That’s up from Sunday’s estimate of $12.5 million.

Officials still don’t have a preliminary damage estimate for the whole county and said it might take several days to arrive at that figure.

“All it is, is educated guesses right now,” said Dan Larkin, a spokesman for the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department Office of Emergency Services.

Larkin said the county was surveying its own property for damage and asking the public to report any damage to private property.

“This is not a catastrophic event,” he said. “Certainly, there was some extensive damage to individual sites. Like normal 6.8 earthquakes, the damage is sporadic.”

State officials were arriving on the scene Monday to help with the damage assessment, said Kelly Huston, a spokesman for the California Emergency Management Agency.

The temblor, which hit offshore about 27 miles southwest of Eureka, sent about 30 people to emergency rooms but only one was seriously injured — an elderly person who fell and suffered a broken hip.

Power outages were widespread, affecting about 36,000 customers initially, but a quick response restored electricity to all by early Sunday, said Janna Morris, a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

California Department of Transportation crews out surveying roads and bridges found no significant damage by Sunday morning, said Stan Woodman, Caltrans maintenance manager for the district encompassing Humboldt County.

The only evacuations from the earthquake were of a single-family, wood-frame home that shifted off its foundation and dropped into the crawl space below and an apartment complex that housed 14 people. The Red Cross did not need to open a shelter because the residents went to local hotels.

Meanwhile, Bird said a chemical that spilled from a shelf at the Eureka campus of College of the Redwoods, which prompted the dispatching of a hazardous materials team, was a harmless alcohol-based preservative that dried up on its own.

“It did not mix with other chemicals,” he said. “The team determined there was no danger to human health.”