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Details of Ridgecrest Earthquake. Aired: 2-2:30p ET

Aired July 4, 2019 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[14:00:00]

TOM SATER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: A little bit better to see if we have any more in the way of information, but just to give you a quick glance here, around the world, anything that is a 6 to 6.9, we get 134 of them a year. It's just we haven't seen them in California in some time, even though we've been seeing these tremors the last couple of weeks.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, that is not very many earthquakes. All right, Tom, stay with us. We're going to continue our coverage. That is it for me. I'm going to hand this over to Brooke Baldwin to continue our coverage of this earthquake, a 6.4 in California.

[14:00:00]

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Brianna Keilar, thank you my friend. And here we go on this Independence Day. We continue with this breaking news out of Southern California. Thank you for you being with me.

I'm Brooke Baldwin. Talking about this major earthquake. Preliminary reports indicate it was a 6.4 magnitude quake. And just for perspective for all of us, those deadly quakes back in 1989 and in 1994 they were 6.9 and 6.7, respectively. Sara Sidner is live for us in Los Angeles -- and Sara, I know you've been talking to Brianna, but -- so you felt the building shake?

SARA SIDNER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yes. Yes, we felt the building shake, and not only that. When you looked out from where we are located -- this is about a 15-floor building -- the entire building, you could feel it moving and you could feel some of the -- some of the accoutrement in here moving in here as well. And then you look down at the street and you could see the signposts going.

You could see the signposts sort of moving. That is from our camera that is above us, on top of this building, this 15-floor building. You see that jiggling a little bit there, but sometimes that's just wind. But we certainly felt it and we felt it for several seconds. It wasn't sort of just a quick move and then it went away. This went on. That's how we knew. Yes, that's how we knew that this was definitely a fairly -- you know, a moderately large earthquake.

We are now hearing 6.4, downgraded from a 6.6. We have just talked to renowned seismologist Lucy Jones which a lot of people know. She has books out. She's been talking about earthquakes for many, many, many decades, and people really trust and know her. She said that just before this happened in Ridgecrest, which is about 156 miles from Los Angeles, there was a 4.2 just a half an hour before. So they've got a -- they got a jolt, and then they got the larger one at 6.4.

And the area in the 1980s had a lot of, you know, 4.5 or 5 magnitude earthquakes. So this is an area that is familiar, as is much of California, with earthquakes, but this is moderately large earthquake and can do damage. And we were able to have a conversation with a hotelier that is in the Ridgecrest area. That hotel says, yes, we felt the floors sort of ripple and there is damage at least at this one hotel.

And if there is damage there, there is likely damage elsewhere in the Ridgecrest area. That area has about 27,000 people, so it's a fairly small town for California. But certainly all over, we are hearing reports from all over the place. Fresno said they felt something. I'm getting -- Twitter is going, you know, crazy --

BALDWIN: Bananas. Yes.

SIDNER: -- with people talking about what's happening, which is pretty normal here. Whenever we have anything that is an event like this, even if it's small, people say, "Hey, did you feel it?" The Los Angeles Police Department saying, "Hey, we felt it. Did you? If there's damage, if there are problems, here's a number to call."

But all the way in Las Vegas, we have now talked to someone in Los Vegas that said -- that's about 269 miles from Los Angeles -- they felt it. Santa Barbara felt it. Pasadena felt it. So this was large enough for people across California and even into the next state to feel this. It gives you some idea of just the strength of this and what it can do.

Now we need to find out what is happening at the epicenter. We will sure get some pictures in here shortly. That is a picture there of Los Angeles just a few moments ago. And you see that camera on the top of our building, shaking, to give you some idea of what it was like, and it did go on for some time. The longer they go on, the more damage there can be. A lot of people trying to figure out what is happening there in Ridgecrest, and we will --

BALDWIN: OK.

SIDNER: -- certainly get those pictures in soon, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Keep working the phones. I'm sure, you know, lots of folks are being called, assessing damage there. Sara, standby. Thank you very much. We want to go into some more of our affiliate coverage there, live in Los Angeles. Let's just -- let's dip in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go and get under the doorsill, but I didn't do that. I just maintained my coolness and you know, to get everything into perspective, since I was just waking up.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And we were speaking earlier. You also experienced the Northridge quake. How does this one compare to that, and have you learned anything from that one?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, yes. This one, I can't say it was as bad as that one, but it was right next door to it. It was pretty bad, this earthquake.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And you told me you're prepared. You stay prepared, even though, you know, we don't have earthquakes every day. But that's something that you think everybody should be kind of prepared for.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, that's so true.

[14:05:00]

And this is a good indicator of why people should be prepared. My brother is really the one that does it. He keeps water, canned goods. He's the guy, you know? And so, yes, now I know for a fact -- and we do have a -- we keep a kit with Band-Aids and medical emergency stuff there. So -- but this lets me know that it's really important for everyone to have their stuff together -- packaged for earthquake preparedness.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could you tell, was there any damage to your unit or to the building?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When I get back home, I'm going to check. I'm going to do that for the owner. I kind of oversee the property for the owner, so when I get back home I'm going to physically check.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then were any neighbors (ph) -- what was the mood like? Was anyone --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to talk to them too. I see them standing outside now, so I'm going to talk to them and see if everything's OK there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's probably who's blowing up your phone now. Thank you so much for speaking with us. We appreciate it. But again, a lot of people that I've --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right, so just listening into this gentleman who obviously felt it, you know, any time you feel the ground move. So many people off work today, right, celebrating this holiday. It is noteworthy, especially when we're now talking about this 6.4 magnitude earthquake. Tom Seder, I'm coming into you in just a hot second, but I just want to relay this. This is from L.A. -- this is from LAX, the airport there.

All LAX runways have been inspected with no reported damage to the airfield or the tunnel. Operations remain normal. So that's the latest out of LAX. Tom Sater?

SATER: Yes. BALDWIN: I'm being told that was a parade. OK, so people parading along through the earthquake in Los Angeles. I know that epicenter you were saying ,what, about 150 miles away, closer towards Las Vegas?

SATER: Yes, it's in between Bakersfield and Las Vegas. It's pretty close to around Death Valley National Park. But Ridgecrest is extremely close. Thirty-thousand people live there. We have some information. We're still limited with the USGS, but it is coming up now, in just a moment -- 6.4, originally 6.6, that's not unusual to drop, but only five miles in-depth. Typically around the world, a lot of times, these will be 100, 200 miles deep. The shallower they are the more shaking stays at the surface.

Of course, a lot of it has to do with the soil content and the make-up of that. Let me move on because that was at 10:33 local time in the morning. They've had significant aftershocks, and I'll show you in just a moment, some of the maps. It's much more than we expected. Dr. Lucy Jones is saying this is not along the San Andreas fault. This is an area of much smaller faults. And since -- back in the '80s, there used to be a number of smaller quakes in this area that were 5.0 magnitude or higher.

However, this is, right now, we believe, the strongest magnitude 6 quake in Southern California since 1999, when they had a little bit larger one. Now when you have quakes of this size, 6.4 or higher, even 6 to 6.9 there's 134 of them that happen around the world annually. But this is going to blow your mind because this is what could still happen. When you have a 6.4 magnitude quake, how many aftershocks can you have and what is typical?

It's typical to have at least one that's a 5.4 or higher. We've had a 4.7. That would fall into this category. How many at 4.4 or higher? We could have 10 of those after this event. How many at 3.4 or higher? A hundred. Let me take you now, I'll show you this map here. This is going to blow your mind as well. It's hard to see, so we're going to zoom in on this, if we can take this full. Any little yellow dot you see here is a tremor in the last week.

Now they're all over. We're going to zoom in here for you to see it a little bit better. Anything in orange is the last 24 hours, and then anything in red is today. Let's get in tighter. You can see the mountainous area. There's Bakersfield. We're going to move out. Ridgecrest is this little area down there, but that's 30,000. So this is our main quake at 6.4. It's a larger dot of red.

I'm counting now, one, three, four, five six, seven, eight, nine aftershocks. Well, one could have been the 4 shock, obviously, the 4.7. But again, this is just beginning, and this could go on for hours, even possibly weeks. Let's just hope that the energy is being released now, so this is not the foreshock and there's a stronger one that follows. But there could be some shaking going on. Not just today, but for the rest of the week into next week.

BALDWIN: All those after shocks. Tom Sater, thank you so much. We'll come back to you as we continue this coverage here. I've got a seismologist with me now, Susan Hough from the USGS. And Susan, you are in L.A., so let me just ask you the first question, which is did you feel it?

SUSAN HOUGH, U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY SEISMOLOGIST: I was actually driving through Central L.A. on the way to the airport to pick up my husband. I did not feel a thing, although on the radio, they were instantly talking about having felt it.

BALDWIN: Yes. And when you hear now, 6.4, put it in perspective for us.

HOUGH: Yes, that is a good-sized earthquake, as you've heard. I mean it's close to the 1994 Northridge earthquake. And what makes all the difference was Northridge was in the middle of a city, where this was in a fairly remote area.

[14:10:00]

The closest good-sized town is indeed Ridgecrest, which is -- my family has lived in that area since 1946. It's remote. It was started as a navy base for weapons testing in a remote area, but it's a good- sized town. As you heard, 30,000 people, and given the magnitude and distance, I would expect that there's some light damage (ph) in that town.

BALDWIN: Listening to you -- I was -- I was listening to a note of Tom Sater's a second ago. He was saying in the last couple of weeks, there have been smaller tremors in Southern California and that seismologists have been taking note, maybe waiting for something like this. Is that -- is that typical, ahead of something of this magnitude?

HOUGH: I'm not aware of any foreshocks in that immediate area. And there has been a spattering of 3s in different areas, but we get magnitudes we use on an almost daily basis through Southern California. So I haven't seen any notable upticks in recent weeks.

BALDWIN: What would you -- just last question, as, you know, we know those after shocks will continue for some period of time. What's your message to folks in this part of the country?

HOUGH: I've just heard (ph) that they are going to continue to feel aftershocks. There is -- there is a small chance of an even bigger earthquake can happen as they heard. This could in fact be the foreshock to something bigger. It's only about a one in 20 chance. It is -- anything that happens in that area is just going to be remote, but earthquakes are possible any day, in any part of California, and they don't take holidays.

BALDWIN: OK. Susan, thank you so much for hopping on the phone with me. And please continue on and grab your husband from LAX -- and a Happy 4th to you and your family. Let me get to this sound. This is from a witness who was actually near the epicenter of this quake. This is from KCBS. Here you go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, yes. Well, everything fell. We were -- I was in the house. My boyfriend was here. He just left to go to his house. And plants fell, pictures fell off the walls. Oh, there's another aftershock. Everything -- things fell out of the cupboards. It was scary. It felt way bigger than a 6.4, for sure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And Susan, is everybody OK in your neighborhood? Did people go outside? Have you talked to any of your neighbors?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I haven't talked to any of the neighbors. I was on the phone with my sister, and she can see fires in town that are burning from her house. She lives up a little higher than I am. And at her house, she as a big shop and all the tool chests, the big tool chests with all the tools in them all fell over. Everything fell out of her cupboard. She said there was glass over her kitchen, on the floor, everything. Like, it was huge here. It was unbelievable.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about the --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was the worst one I've ever felt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about the power? Is your power still working?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My power is working, and my gas line looks okay. The cars -- the cars were, like, bouncing up and down. It was just incredible. Everything -- it was huge here. It was so scary. I've never -- I felt -- well, I was in Big Bear for the Landers quake, and it was as big as that, for sure.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And describe the community to me, Susan. Is it mostly flat areas? Is it pretty hilly? You said your sister saw fires. Can you describe the landscape?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, yes, very flat. We're down in a valley, about 45 minutes from Death Valley. And so, it's a very flat community. There's a naval base here, (inaudible) community is from the Naval Weapons Center. So it's a very flat area, but we're still experiencing a lot of aftershocks. Like, they're constant. We had a little one this morning too. It didn't wake me up. I guess it was like a little precursor, a 4-point-something, about 10:00. Could you guys feel that one?

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BALDWIN: All right, so that's someone who most definitely felt it and was assessing the damage in her own home. Let's go back to you, Sara Sidner, in Los Angeles, in our bureau there, because I know we've been wondering about, you know, damage assessments throughout this part of, you know, California.

SIDNER: Yes.

BALDWIN: What have you learned?

SIDNER: So we talked to, as I said earlier, a hotelier who says that they definitely have damage there. They felt the floor ripple. But we have just got another report. You heard the woman there, talking about fires. Another person that lives in Ridgecrest has said that she definitely sees fires. She is concerned about that.

As you know, when these happen, sometimes they can, for example, break gas lines and that sort of thing, which can create fires. We saw that happen in the San Francisco earthquake there, where a whole area was basically burned down in the marina because of that.

So that's always a huge concern, which is why they tell people, turn off your gas if you can. Turn off your water. You know, prepare yourself in these sorts of things. But you have no warning. And so, when they just happen, that's why, right after, if everything is OK and you're in a safe spot and you can do these things --

[14:15:00]

-- you should definitely do some of the things you're taught here in California. I was also just speaking with Lucy Jones who is a renowned seismologist has said that yes there was a slight warning, a 4.2 magnitude quake happened there in Ridgecrest about a half an hour before a larger quake happened, but you don't know that because we get little earthquakes all the time.

People are relatively used to having a small shake and then they go, "oh wow, we just experienced an earthquake." When there's no damage, there are no issues it doesn't feel big -- you go about your day, you go about your business.

One of the things that could be good here is that it is a holiday, there isn't a lot of traffic, not a lot of folks out on the roads --

BALDWIN: Great point.

SIDNER: Whether you're in Los Angeles or in Ridgecrest that can be a good thing because as you know those overpasses and all of the freeways that are here can be vulnerable in these kinds of earthquakes. It's what we saw for example in Northridge which was a 6.4 and that created quite a bit of damage, one of the big pictures that we all remember, Brook (ph), right, is when a overpass caved in -- fell in and you saw that sort of damage which was incredibly scary to people.

I've just been -- and I can't help it because it's one of the tools that everyone uses now to find out what's --

BALDWIN: Twitter, it's OK.

SIDNER: Going on in the area, Twitter, right? But this comes from Ava DuVernay, and everybody knows who she is -- she is a renown director who has won quite a few awards and she lives here in Los Angeles, she's lived here her entire life and she says, "that was the longest earthquake I have experienced. Not jerky, smooth and rolling," that describes it perfectly.

It was rolling, it did feel like it went on for quite a long time -- long enough for people to get on Twitter and show the video of things happening. I can tell you here in the Los Angeles area -- and we're about 156 miles away from Ridgecrest, so giving you some idea that it's being felt all over the place -- Santa Barbara, Pasadena -- all of these places have felt it.

But we should also mention Las Vegas felt it, and Los Vegas may have felt it even strong, why? Because of where this particular earthquake was centered. Ridgecrest is actually closer to Las Vegas than it is to, for example Los Angeles. So wherever this is epicentered (ph) this is where you're going to feel the strongest, and have the most potential for damage and injuries.

I do want to mention this to folks who are in the southern, western part of the country -- do not call 911 unless you have been injured or there are injuries that you can see because what happens is those phone lines get filled with people saying we felt this earthquake, we want to know what's going on?

That is not the venue for that and the Los Angeles Police Department, for example is asking people, "look unless there are injuries, unless there's an emergency please do not call us, there are other ways to contact us and there are ways to get information online for example."

But when those phone lines get jammed and there is an emergency -- there are fires for example, there are people injured, there are damages people are concerned about -- they cannot get the help they need as soon as they need it, so that's one warning to folks who are obviously concerned with what has happened.

And the fact that this went on so long Brook (ph) is significant because the longer the earthquake goes on, the more potential for more damage. And you heard there, there there are people now -- two people have confirmed that they have seen fires in the Ridgecrest area. Brooke.

BALDWIN: Thank you so much for all of that, I can tell you I've been through this before Sara Sidner, total pro -- great note on not calling 911 unless you can physically see an injury. Again live pictures here, thanks to KTLA as they have certainly got eyes on the skies and noteworthy now these reports of these fires in the Ridgecrest area which is closer to where this thing was centered. So hopefully we can get somebody on the phone from Ridgecrest.

In the meantime I have Maurice Aouad on the phone with me, fully transparency, Maurice you are Robert's (ph) brother -- Robert (ph) is producer in my ear, but you are in Los Angeles and I appreciate you calling in.

You're from Ohio, have you ever felt anything like this and what did it feel like?

MAURICE AOUAD, FELT EARTHQUAKE IN LOS ANGELES: Quite the wakeup call is what it felt like. Yes, coming from Ohio this was an experience to say the least --

BALDWIN: Hang on, hang on -- hang on one second. Let's listen to this, this is a seismologist speaking about the quake.

LUCY JONES: The duration is how long the Earth is producing energy, and earthquakes begin at an epicenter, but they happen along a fault -- and they start at the epicenter and they rupture down the fault. That rupture speed is two miles a second, if the fault is 10 miles long the fault -- the earthquake's producing energy for five seconds.

This earthquake at this magnitude, likely that the fault is at least 10 miles long -- probably right around 10 miles long which would mean the Earth produces energy for five seconds, compared to the four that was the foreshock, would have been producing energy for a quarter of a second.

[14:20:00]

I did not have shake alert working on the computers at home. The computers here in the lab did give an early warning for this by about -- be pretty -- it would be a pretty long time because it's a long ways away. Rob (ph), why don't you come join us?

The head -- yes, he's getting briefed and then we'll get the USGS representative here as well --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You said the shake alert worked, can you describe a little bit about what that is?

JONES: OK, so we see right here is our shaking distributions (ph), we have a system that recognizes that earthquakes are beginning and sends you the information that the earthquake has begun, and an estimate of when shaking will get to you depending on this travel time of the waves.

So the system worked and said there's an earthquake of about 6.2 producing energy, and the warning came through -- do we have a time of how much warning we got in Pasadena?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).

JONES: And the final magnitude of course --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Los Angeles was 48 seconds.

JONES: OK, so in Los Angeles there was 48 second warning that the shaking was arriving. Obviously it was not damaging shaking, that's one of the downsides to this only approach that we have, the further away you are, the more warning you get and the less like it is to be damaging.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And there's sensors buried somewhere, or satellites, or how do we know --

JONES: OK, so how do we ever know there's an earthquake? We have sensors, they're called seismometers distributed around southern California. We record about 500 sensors

(AUDIO GAP)

Seismic network, and we -- they are distributed widely so we can try and catch them as soon as we get enough nearby we can see that it's -- that an earthquake's underway and we send that information out. And in fact, one of the exciting things -- these biggest earthquakes

they aren't at a point. So when we're trying to predict where will be effected we need to know which direction the fault's going. We have a prototype system and that worked here too, so we could -- we got an estimate of the fault growing as it was happening. So it's the first time we've really ever had that work.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can we -- can we talk a little bit about the motion, like to me it sort of felt like I was on a boat and I felt a little nauseous, I've heard other people say the same?

JONES: OK, so an earthquake produces energy at many different wavelengths. There's high frequency energy that jerks you around, and there's low frequency energy that rolls. The high frequency energy dies off with distance more quickly than the low frequency energy.

Think about a boom box, you hear the car going down the street when it's a long ways away all you hear is the drum beat, that's the low frequency energy getting farther than the high frequency energy.

So if you feel it as a rolling motion, you know it's pretty far away. So when I felt the motion it felt pretty rolling motion and it lasted for 10 seconds, I could estimate that it had to be at least a magnitude 6 and it had to be pretty far away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For those who may be just joining us --

JONES: Right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know a lot of stations are taking this live, can you back up to the beginning -- are we having any reports of damage? Where was the earthquake centered exactly, the basics?

JONES: OK, so the basics of the earthquake -- the earthquake is near China Lake and Ridgecrest, so the area to the east of the southern- most part of the San Andreas fault. The nearest fault is the Little Lake fault, and that -- it might be associated with it but we don't know. We have to have a field geologist to tell us.

It is a relatively uninhabited -- you know, it's a sparsely inhabited area so the number of people who would have received damage is much lower. I think we need to check what's happening in Ridgecrest and China Lake.

Damage reports do not come here, we are seismologists measuring the movement of the ground -- damage reports go to the Governor's Office of Emergency Services.

Rob (ph), can I ask you to come join us?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure.

JONES: So Rob Graves is a Seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and the Regional Coordinator for Southern California.

ROB GRAVES, USGS SEISMOLOGIST: Let me just -- so obviously we're here because we had an earthquake to celebrate 4th of July. We're going to have people out -- our geologists are heading out in to the field right now to see if they can document any fault displacement, obviously if any damage reports will come in.

This earthquake was large enough where the shaking could have caused damage. One thing I would like to note is that here in the L.A. basin area, because as Lucy was explaining the waves -- the low frequency waves tend to travel further than the high frequency, many people out in the L.A. basin would have felt that rolling shaking whereas up here in the mountains people didn't feel it as strongly.

So we're going to have -- even in the L.A. area we'll have disparity in terms of the reports of the shaking.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I know it's still early, but any takeaways from this quake and -- wrap it up for us now?

GRAVES: I'll let Lucy do that.

[14:25:00]

JONES: There is a definition of the change in the news cycle (ph) -- usually at this point you're still asking us what was the magnitude. Luckily now we can give it an accurate magnitude very quickly. It is not yet an hour since the earthquake. One comment I would make if you've noticed we've had a lot of aftershocks. Now those in general are not being felt down here in the L.A. basin, up in the Owens Valley area I am sure they are feeling lots of these aftershocks. I haven't had a chance to keep track, but it's -- we've had dozens, I think above three at this point --

GRAVES: Yes, yes.

JONES: We will continue to be having a lot of aftershocks. This area is also characteristically tends to have very robust sequences. The magnitude 5.1 happened (ph) very near this in 1982 and there were six or eight magnitude 4s associated with that event as well as dozens of magnitude 3s and it went on for six months.

So we should be expecting lots of aftershocks, and some of them will be bigger than the 3s that we've been having so far. I think the chance of having a magnitude 5, I don't -- this is an off-the-top, not calculated thing is probably greater than 50-50. Sometime this afternoon we're going to be having a larger aftershock within this sequence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Question for you, if -- considering its location to the San Andreas fault, is there any threat to the San Andreas because of this?

JONES: No -- no increase in risk. Well, maybe slightly. But we have never seen a foreshock more than 10 kilometers, six miles away from it's main shock and this is substantially farther than that to the San Andreas -- or to the Garlock fault which is another large fault capable of big earthquakes. That is significantly closer to this event, and would probably have a slightly increased risk on Garlock. But I think the San Andreas is too far away even for this size earthquake.

GRAVES: But just keep in mind that the San Andreas is an active fault and so there is always that risk at play.

JONES: It doesn't increase the risk --

GRAVES: Yes.

JONES: It also doesn't decrease it.

GRAVES: Exactly.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you describe the activity in that area in the months leading in to this quake?

GRAVES: Yes, we don't have that data right at hand --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No swarms of --

GRAVES: No, nothing -- yes, so if you're maybe asking, we have had a couple of other swarms in other areas of southern California in recent days. Nothing like that was occurring up in this area in the last couple months.

JONES: There was a 4.2 just about 30 minutes before the main shock and that is a classic foreshock. But I know that when I saw that page come through this morning I went, "hmph (ph) I haven't seen Searles Valley in a while."

GRAVES: And there is also a slight chance that we could have an event larger than what we're calling the main shock right now.

JONES: That's about 5 percent chance for every earthquake, and like any other earthquake this probably has about a 1 in 20 chance that this is not the largest event within the sequence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rob could you spell your name real quick?

GRAVES: Yes, R-O-B and last name Graves G-R-A-V-E-S.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And your title one more time, sorry?

GRAVES: Seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're getting some feedback from viewers and users of the alert system and they say that in Los Angeles it did not work, could it --

JONES: It worked, they -- it was not broadcast on shake alert.

GRAVES: Yeah --

JONES: The system worked, but the USGS perimeters --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could you elaborate on how the system operates and what --

GRAVES: Yeah so -- and unfortunately I don't have the details as to what didn't occur, or what didn't work properly we're looking in to that right now. So the system actually did detect the earthquake, it did work in terms of estimating that there was shaking that was going to occur. The signal apparently did not get out, so the system is still being tested -- we're going to have to figure out what's going on with that. Obviously we'll have the updates later on today.

Now I will also point out the shaking in the Los Angeles region was not strong enough to be damaging in that sense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So to be clear, the signal was supposed to go out -- it should have gone out?

JONES: We -- do you know that?

GRAVES: I don't know. I want to hesitate before making any definitive statements until I can sort that out exactly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You (ph) don't know at this point whether it was --

GRAVES: Yeah this is --

JONES: OK, the system in the lab worked. So you know, physically it worked. The ShakeAlertLA system was set up with agreements that limited which alerts went out, because we get a lot of false alarms at the lower levels.

So whether or not the shaking exceeds -- you know, reached the perimeters that should have been alerted, we don't know and we're trying to find out.

[14:30:00]

But remember, we're not even an hour since the earthquake, please --