The 4:31 a.m. jolt hit Los Angeles from 11 miles deep, shaking the city from its slumber with a temblor that would kill 57 people, injure 9,000, topple freeways, ignite fires, set off landslides and inflict $24 to $93 billion in damage to homes, businesses, utilities, roads and even parks.
The Jan. 17, 1994 Northridge earthquake is the most costly quake in U.S. history.
The 6.7-magnitude earthquake lasted for 10 to 20 horrifying seconds as the Southland shuddered amidst widespread urban collapse and chaos.
The quake was so powerful that residents of San Diego, Las Vegas and Ensenada felt it. Famously, then-Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan was thrown from his bed on the Westside by the quake, jumped into his car to rush to City Hall, and nearly drove off the 10 Freeway into the air — because the 10 had been severed by the quake.
In the weeks and months after the Northridge quake, engineers discovered that steel frame buildings throughout the region, using an approach since the 1960s called “moment frames,” were not quake-proof as believed. The most famous of these structures was the quake-damaged Getty Center, then still under construction.
The Northridge quake was one of the most destructive in U.S. history. The most devastating was the severe 1906 San Francisco earthquake and resulting “firestorm from hell” which killed more than 3,000 people.
It took years to rebuild from the Northridge quake, the nation’s first to strike from directly beneath a metropolitan area since the devastating 1933 Long Beach quake that killed 120 and destroyed or badly damaged hundreds of unreinforced brick and other buildings in Southern California, including 230 school buildings.
Today, the region tries to get its residents ready for the next inevitable Big One, in part by urging residents to participate in the annual ShakeOut.
Los Angeles city limit sign on the 5 Freeway. The Northridge quake hit at 4:31 the morning of Jan. 17, 1994, a powerful jolt that flattened buildings, destroyed homes, damaged freeways, ignited fires and disrupted water and power. The 6.7-magnitude Northridge Earthquake also killed nearly three dozen people, injured 8,700 more, caused some $20 billion in damage and shattered the nerves of millions of Southern California residents. “It was like the devil was waking up … it was a horrifying feeling,” said one of the quake victims quoted in a Daily News story on Jan. 18.
Photo By Hans Gutnecht/Daily News
Robin Purcell makes his way to his daughter’s apartment on Plummer St in Northridge to recover some of her possessions. The Northridge quake hit at 4:31 the morning of Jan. 17, 1994, a powerful jolt that flattened buildings, destroyed homes, damaged freeways, ignited fires and disrupted water and power. The 6.7-magnitude Northridge Earthquake also killed nearly three dozen people, injured 8,700 more, caused some $20 billion in damage and shattered the nerves of millions of Southern California residents. “It was like the devil was waking up … it was a horrifying feeling,” said one of the quake victims quoted in a Daily News story on Jan. 18.
Daily News File Photo
An auto traveling on the 118 freeway got caught when the freeway collapsed at Gothic Avenue. Los Angeles Daily News file photo
Officer Joshua Wong monitors the area around a collapsed section of the Santa Monica Freeway near Fairfax Ave. The Northridge quake hit at 4:31 the morning of Jan. 17, 1994, a powerful jolt that flattened buildings, destroyed homes, damaged freeways, ignited fires and disrupted water and power. The 6.7-magnitude Northridge Earthquake also killed nearly three dozen people, injured 8,700 more, caused some $20 billion in damage and shattered the nerves of millions of Southern California residents. “It was like the devil was waking up … it was a horrifying feeling,” said one of the quake victims quoted in a Daily News story on Jan. 18.
Daily News File Photo
A masonry building at the intersection of Ventura and Van Nuys boulevards in Sherman Oaks took a beating from the quake. (Los Angeles Daily News file photo)
Firefighters work to free trapped residents at the Northridge Meadows Apartments on Reseda Blvd in Northridge CA. The Northridge quake hit at 4:31 the morning of Jan. 17, 1994, a powerful jolt that flattened buildings, destroyed homes, damaged freeways, ignited fires and disrupted water and power. The 6.7-magnitude Northridge Earthquake also killed nearly three dozen people, injured 8,700 more, caused some $20 billion in damage and shattered the nerves of millions of Southern California residents. “It was like the devil was waking up … it was a horrifying feeling,” said one of the quake victims quoted in a Daily News story on Jan. 18. (Daily News File Photo)
