Last week, the news media ran stories related to the Napa Earthquake that struck at 3:20 a.m. on August 24, 2014. (I was downstairs reading a book when it happened.) It was a 6.0 magnitude quake that hit south Napa near the west Napa fault. Forty-one photographs of the damage have been posted on the Napa Valley Register.com site. Considerable structure damage was done to buildings and many residents were injured; one person died later. This earthquake was the largest in the San Francisco Bay Area since the Loma Prieta quake in 1989. (http://pubs.usgs.gov/ddes/dds/-29)

In 2008, the “Uniform California Earthquake Rupture Forecast, Version 2” estimated that a Magnitude 6.7 earthquake or greater in Northern California over the next 30 years was probable.(http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1437/) The report treated the Hayward and Rodgers Creek Fault zones as one. Since September has been designated “National Emergency Preparedness Month,” and even though we cannot predict the exact date when another earthquake will occur, it behooves us to “Be Ready & Prepared” when it happens. Stay tuned.

P.S. BTW, several Emergency Preparedness blogs were posted last month on this site. If you haven’t read them, just scroll down to those posted in July and August.