One year ago today, a 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck Ferndale. While not the epicenter of the 6.4 quake, the city of Rio Dell was hit hard.
“It was a true catastrophe. About a quarter of all of the homes and apartments in Rio Dell were damaged in that earthquake,” Cal Poly Humboldt Professor Lori Dengler said.
The Ferndale earthquake struck in the early morning hours on December 20, 2022. Two people suffered medical emergencies and later died when crews couldn’t reach them in time.
The quake shook houses of their foundations. And left thousands without power, gas or water.
“Two doors down from us at that house, they had the water mains split and it completely flooded out the house. Down on wildwood, they had a large porch that came down on the front of the house. It is pretty extensive,” resident Sharon Wolff said in a 2022 interview.
In the following days, our area felt more than 200 aftershocks including one that measured 5.4 on New Year’s Day.
More than 380 homes had damage including 90 various structures now deemed unsafe.
Food for People was on the ground, ready to give back to those affected.
“When the earthquake hit yesterday, we tried to figure out how we could best manage,” executive director Carly Robbins said in a 2022 interview. “We connected with our partners over here at the Rio Dell food pantry…everyone’s really taking care of their own community and it’s really great to see.”
The governor declared a state of emergency in Humboldt County.
“Rio Dell and this earthquake did earn a state disaster declaration which means the state of California would reimburse counties for the cost of response and for repairing state structures,” Dengler said.
But we didn’t get a federal declaration because there wasn’t enough damage.
“The real sad story is that if this earthquake had occurred in Oregon, if Rio Dell had occurred, they would have gotten a lot more help. Because 32 million dollars of losses in Oregon or more than half of the U.S. States would have crossed the bar for a presidential or federal disaster declaration.”
Rio Dell continues to recover a year later with millions of funding poured in to make the city shine bright once again.
Pay It Forward Humboldt will play host to a community gathering on January 13 to connect and heal from last year’s earthquakes.
They wanted to give everyone time to spend with their families over the holidays.
