Northern California got a rude awakening early this morning in the form of a 6.0 magnitude earthquake. In addition to substantial property damage, the quake seriously damaged Napa infrastructure, including 50 gas-main breaks and 30 water-main breaks. Numerous injuries have been reported and at least 64,000 people are without power.
Damages are still being assessed while local, state and federal agencies coordinate their response to the event.
Unfortunately, NorCal may get another rumble sooner than later…. The USGS is giving a 54% chance that another earthquake of 5.0 magnitude or greater could strike the Bay area in the next 7 days. In addition, 30 to 70 smaller aftershocks between magnitude 3.0 to 5.0 are also expected. This is the largest quake to hit the Napa Valley since the Loma Prieta event 25 years ago.
Oh, and by the way… we have our third named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season swirling about 500 miles southeast of Miami. Cristobal is currently bringing heavy rains to the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the Turks and Caicos. At this point, there is still a good degree of uncertainty as to the final track of this system. It may be turned away from the U.S. courtesy of a jet stream dip OR it may track close to the U.S. East coast next week.
As these events may create numerous deployments, we are putting adjusters on standby at this time. Please contact your dispatcher or email hr@eberls.com if you are available to commit to standby.
