Northern California communities give a sigh of relief from minimal earthquake damage

FERNDALE, Calif. - The day after a 7.0 earthquake struck Humboldt County, it is apparent that it did remarkably little damage considering the quake's magnitude. This is welcome news for Northern California communities who exhaled a collective sigh of relief. 

 "It was very surprising; very little structural, damage. There were like knocked over computers and different things within the building, but it was surprising, but not much damage. And, my daughter at the Scotia elementary; not much damage up there either. My other daughter in Fortuna, not much damage there," said office worker and mom Tammy Sheffield.

At the Farmer's Daughter emporium in Ferndale, Friday was back to normal business. Thursday morning, it was anything but, as inventory fell to the floor.. A lot of it was damaged or broken, ending the business day, but with no one injured and the building fully intact.

The big liquor store in Fortuna has reopened after employees spent many hours putting debris from many bottles of wine, hard liquor, and beer that fell to the floor. The clean-up effort filled half of a large dumpster. 

The Dollar General store in Rio Dell remains closed and merchandise is strewn about. That will delay its opening for days to come.

Many homeowners suffered as well. "My home was; it was not as bad as the last two we had two years ago, but still everything was broken: TVs, dishes, everything was broken again," said Breanne Baker.

But, all in all, it could have been much, much, much worse. "We really lucked out. I'll take a 7.0 earthquake like that any day of the week if the damage stays where it stayed today," said Assistant Chief Ryan Heussler.

While we said the damage to structures and infrastructures was minimal, it doesn't mean there wasn't any. One of the best examples is on Blue Slide Road. 

Crews were out filling cracks in the asphalt to keep the coming drenching rains from weakening and undermining other roads. When rains come here, it is usually heavy.

In Rio Dell, a building housing a sporting goods store lost only one of several large plate glass windows. That's a simple repair. But a series of long deep cracks in the old building it resides in, could turn out to be a very big deal structurally. 

Scary but not as awful as when Christmas was ruined here two years ago. "I was really, we were all really scrounging for good feeling, I think, two years ago and trying to make sure it was still real nice, but I already feel a lot better this time around," said Rayah Shanchez a Farmer's Daughter salesperson.

"It was crazy," said Ms. Sheffield. I asked her if it was nice the quake didn’t ruin this Christmas. "Oh my God, yes it is. Yes, sir," she said.