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Magnitude 7.1 Earthquake Shakes Southern California; California Rocked BY Second Powerful Quake In Two Days; Ridgecrest Mayor Tells Residents To "Prepare" For Next Week; Disney Roller Coaster Rider Relives Moment The Quake Hit. Aired 7-8a ET

Aired July 6, 2019 - 7:00   ET

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


[07:00:10] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you, top of the hour now. I'm Victor Blackwell.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean in for Christi Paul this morning.

BLACKWELL: A second earthquake has now rocked Southern California. This one hit near Ridgecrest last night at 7.1 magnitude. That is 11 times stronger than the one that hit the day before.

DEAN: As you see right there, it rocked swimming pools and rattled items off store shelves. Watch what it was like to be in the middle of it as it happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get under the table. Get under the table. Oh, my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was a bad one (BLEEP) this is still a bad one --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, the front door came open.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's OK. It's OK. Just hold on. Hold on. Oh, my God. This is bad, Brian. Oh. Oh, my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get under the table, get under the table.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Thankfully, there have been no reports of deaths or serious injuries. The epicenter of that quake missed the major cities nearby. But still, as you can imagine, thousands of people have lost power and water services. And the USGS now says this will likely be a billion- dollar disaster.

BLACKWELL: Yes. A lot of work to do. This morning, the Ridgecrest fire chief said that there were so many 911 calls that there was a backlog to get help to people.

CNN national correspondent, Sara Sidner, is in Ridgecrest near the epicenter. And not just the rattling of homes, some fires at homes, as well.

SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we talked to firefighters at one of the fires that they've put out just a few hours ago here behind me at this home. They said that they were fighting three fires after this significant earthquake, the 7.1 major earthquake here.

But a lot of folks were taken aback by this, because while seismologists said that there was a one in 20 chance that the 6.4 earthquake, the largest earthquake we've seen in 20 years, was the main earthquake, they were surprised that actually they were hit with something much bigger and that was a foreshock.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER (voice-over): Residents of Ridgecrest thought they'd experienced the worst of the shaking Thursday. It turned out the largest earthquake to hit Southern California in 20 years, a 6.4 magnitude quake, was just a foreshock.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

SIDNER: About 8:20 Friday night, the violent jolt from a 7.1 magnitude quake traumatized the town again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cars just started dancing, the dogs were freaking out. The cattle behind us were going nuts.

SIDNER: It ruptured gas lines, caused fires.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody OK?

SIDNER: Knocked out power --

(SIREN)

SIDNER: -- left some residents scraped and bruised, and at the very least, scared.

MAYOR PEGGY BREEDEN, RIDGECREST, CALIFORNIA: Many of them are sleeping outside tonight. We are offering any services as noted earlier. We have places for people to shelter here. But many are choosing to just be with their neighbors both in their sidewalks, in their driveways, and some of them are in the streets.

SIDNER: In the nearby city of Bakersfield, the shifting earth sent rocks cascading onto a highway and created cracks along the highway. Across the California border in Las Vegas, the shaking sent a wave of panic in the stands during the NBA Las Vegas Summer League game.

And more than 150 miles away in Los Angeles, tens of thousands of L.A. Dodgers fans felt the familiar yet unnerving jostling from the quake, though the game went on.

Near the epicenter, seismologists say there is still a chance that the 7.1 is only a foreshock, but the more slightly scenario is strong aftershocks that go on for days.

DR. LUCY JONES, USGS SEISMOLOGIST: We have a very energetic system sequence. So we -- there's no reason to think that we can't have more large earthquakes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: And that is the renowned Dr. Jones, a seismologist that people have been listening to and following for many, many years, even decades. She knows her stuff. For sure, we have felt the strong aftershocks since we have been here.

We should also mention that obviously it is overnight here. It is very dark. Hard to see the potential damage here. We know there are several businesses have reported damage. A hotel that has reported damage. But we will have to see in the daylight what a 7.1-magnitude quake, what is considered a major earthquake, has done in this city which is near the epicenter.

[07:05:10] Guys, back to you.

BLACKWELL: Sara Sidner for us there in Ridgecrest, thank you so much.

And let's talk more about these aftershocks, they are continuing this morning. Seismologists say that they will continue for years. Now most of those will not be felt by most people. But they will continue.

The mayor of Ridgecrest says that, you know, some people don't want to be indoors in these stores, in their homes. They're sleeping on sidewalks and in driveways.

DEAN: The mayor spoke at a news conference after the earthquake. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BREEDEN: Thank you all for coming. I would like to say a few words to our own citizens. Many have experienced something that is very traumatic, somewhat unknown to most of them, and many of them are sleeping outside tonight. I know that it is a difficult situation, but they're fearful to be in their homes. And we are offering any services as noted earlier. We have places for people to shelter here. But many are choosing to just be with their neighbors, both in their sidewalks, in their driveways, and some of them are in the streets.

We're asking everyone to drive safely, be careful, watch for these people, and understand that we are doing the very best we can. It is not an impossible task to take care of all this, but it is going to be a longer task than we thought the other day. So I thank you all for coming, I appreciate the consideration that you're going to give to citizens of our community. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: We certainly are thinking of them. That quake caused an extensive damage there in Ridgecrest. The homes shifted, foundations cracked, there were multiple fires there. We also know some injuries were reported, but thankfully no deaths.

BLACKWELL: So again, the worst may not be over. The experts say not only will there be aftershocks, but there is a chance, one in 10, that a quake stronger than 7.1 could hit California in the coming days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONES: We have never seen a sequence like this suddenly stop. Right? So the aftershocks will continue. It's following a traditional pattern, but on the high side. So If you -- you know, how many aftershocks will you get to a seven. Some of them have just a small number. Some of them have a lot. We're on the upper 50 percentile. And this is definitely a robust sequence, but it's far from unprecedented. It's just on the high side of average.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And, Lucy, can you discuss the aftershocks again, the size of them, and how many you have?

JONES: OK. So far, we've recorded two that are above magnitude five. 16 above magnitude four, and over 50 that are above magnitude three.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the chances of another seven-plus in your mind?

JONES: There's an estimate, a very preliminary estimate right now of about 10 percent. About a one in ten chance that we could have another seven within this sequence. That's calculated for the next week.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What about the six to five, please? What about six, five?

JONES: OK. So the chance of something bigger than six is actually been over 50 percent, one in two, little better than one in -- a 50/50 chance. And the chance for fives is approaching certainty. It's -- it would be extremely unusual if we didn't have another five.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Three days -- JONES: These estimates are off for a week. All right? So the most

likely time is right now. The other thing to remember, the way they die off with time, and we were seeing it after the six, and it seems to be -- we're seemed to be getting into the die-off period here on the seven. Whatever number you have in the first 24 hours, the next 24 hours will have about half that many. And the next 24 hours will have about a third that many, et cetera.

So the 10th day, we'll have one 10th as many as we have on the first day. And what that means is it will go down pretty quickly, and then we'll have a really long tail where it will continue to have the risk for quite a while.

The last time we had earthquakes of this size, we were seeing significant aftershocks for more than a year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Let's bring in now meteorologist, Ivan Cabrera, to help us understand the magnitude of this quake and what we can expect over the next few days.

Listen, you know, we're saying that a 10 percent chance of a 7.1 or greater, sounds small until it happens. That 6.4, that was, what, a five percent chance that there would be another big quake or something larger.

IVAN CABRERA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Which means there's a higher chance, Victor -- good morning -- to get something like a 7.0 or higher. And there's a 50 percent chance of getting the kind of quake we got 34 hours ago. These were 34 hours apart as far as the quakes. I'll point them out here for you. This was the 6.4, right? And then seven miles away was the 7.1. And so along the same fault line here.

[07:10:18] And I want to break this down, as far as the numbers. Look at what's happening in just the last 24 to 36 hours. We've had thousands and thousands of aftershocks. You're going to feel all of them. But my goodness, when you're in a home and you've already experienced those traumatic event, you don't know if that's going to be a bigger quake, right? Things start shaking, and you get nervous.

So this is happening along one of the fault lines. You can clearly see that there. We have another fault line going in the other direction, and they kind of follow the same area here.

I'll widen out even more. Because folks have been asking, well, is this the big quake, San Andreas? No. San Andreas' fault is actually along of Western California. The area I've highlighted there. And that actually separates the North American plate from the pacific plate. Well, what does that mean?

Let's talk about that, because this is not one of those things where the potential for the point we've had along Ridgecrest would trigger the San Andreas. They're completely separate. Nothing to do with each other. Let's put this into motion. This is what we call the strike slip, that's when the plates kind of move side to side. The earth is always moving beneath us. It's molten down there. But this is what you call a strike slip when the plates go in opposite directions and you get the initial rupture. Problem is, it's not quite done, right? The aftershocks continue as things need to settle down. And they don't settle down for weeks and sometimes months.

And over the next week, that's when we're talking about the potential again for something as significant as we've had over the last several days.

All right. So let's check in on the intensity here, 7.1. The difference between that and 6.4, as we've been mentioning is 11 times stronger.

We've had already aftershocks over five, and this is the new thing, right? Ridgecrest actually felt severe shaking. We did not have that with the 6.4 quake, and hopefully we won't have anything as strong.

But as she mentioned, there are one in 10 chance of something like 7.0 or higher. An unusual event. I've been covering earthquakes for CNN now for 10 years. I've never seen something this high as a 6.4 to have something even higher, so the foreshock and the main shock here.

So hopefully we're done. As far as the weather, of course, folks are going to be without power. We've got power lines that are disconnected. We've got gas ruptures there. So they're going to have to deal with the heat that's in the triple digits over the next several days.

An improvement, I guess, you can say with 97 on Monday, but it is a scorcher during this time of year, this part of the world. And this is going to be no different in the next three days, guys.

DEAN: Some perspective there, yes.

BLACKWELL: Ivan Cabrera, thank you so much.

CABRERA: You bet.

DEAN: We are hearing from some of the residents who experienced the earthquake. The city's mayor says several of them are now sleeping outside because they're afraid to be inside. And officials say hundreds more are staying at local shelters.

BLACKWELL: Valerie Taylor lived through Hurricane Katrina. She tells CNN affiliate KBAK what it was like to now live through her first earthquake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VALERIE TAYLOR, EVACUEE: I have a past experience, I'm from New Orleans, from Louisiana. And I experienced the Hurricane Katrina. So this is my first experience with the earthquake in California, and the way it's tore our house up and tore the -- all the pictures in the walls and everything turned over on us. We live on the top floor of an apartment complex. So we was all trying to come out the home, and we were shaking down the stairs with our kids. And we just thank God that we have a relief center here in Ridgecrest, California, that's able to allow and to take care of us and watch over us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: All right. This just into CNN, we've learned that naval air weapons station near the epicenter of the earthquake is, quote, "Not mission capable until further notice." Nonessential personnel have been ordered to evacuate the facility as a damage inspection is carried out.

And authorities tell us that security protocols are in place. And the safety of the staff is the highest priority.

DEAN: We're going to have more updates on that as more information comes in. We'll keep an eye on it for you.

Still to come, residents of Ridgecrest, California, are terrified this morning after that magnitude 7.1 quake rocked their community. The city editor for The Daily Independent in Ridgecrest is going to join us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:34] DEAN: Joining us now is Jessica Weston from Ridgecrest, California. She's the city editor for The Daily Independent there in Ridgecrest. Good morning to you. Thanks so much for being with us.

JESSICA WESTON, CITY EDITOR, THE DAILY INDEPENDENT: Good morning.

DEAN: We're glad you're safe. We have heard, Jessica, from the mayor that some residents simply don't feel safe enough to sleep inside their own homes tonight. What are you seeing and hearing from people there?

WESTON: Yes, absolutely true. If you drive up and down the streets, it's very dark because most -- many of the lights are out. But people are kind of congregating or they were kind of congregating the last time I was driving around on their sidewalks. And people are sleeping in their cars.

DEAN: They feel safe over there.

WESTON: Yes, they feel safer because, you know, because of the quake that hit last night, they want to be kind of outside if it happens again.

BLACKWELL: So, of course, the first responders got immediately to those who were injured, got immediately to those fires. But is there any work being done overnight? I imagine some damage assessments wait until sunrise. But what's happening now in these hours before sun comes up Saturday morning?

WESTON: Yes. You're absolutely right. They can only see so much before the sun comes up. They did have -- they flew overhead in helicopters. There was no structural damage that was visible from the sky. However, highway 178 had rock slides, and it's shut down in two places. And there were some problems with, you know, water lines breaking and so forth.

But in terms of the actual, the houses and stuff, I've heard stories of block walls being knocked over. And obviously, the two structure fires that we know about. And I actually saw one of those. I happened to be eating dinner, and I came out and saw one of the fires. It was actually the trailer park.

But as to the state of most of the homes in the area, we don't know yet. I mean, people are individually posting pictures on Facebook and so forth, but there's been no general assessment of the damage at this point.

DEAN: Hard to see until the sun comes up.

WESTON: Yes, yes.

DEAN: So often, Jessica, in these situations, we really see communities come together. We see an outpouring of support, of people who maybe weren't as impacted by others, although with an earthquake that damage is pretty widespread across the board, I would imagine.

Tell us a little about your community and what you've seen in the immediate hours after all of this.

[07:20:00] WESTON: Absolutely. OK. After the first quake, the community completely rallied together. We have amazing volunteer organizations. So many -- tens of thousands of volunteer hours where people helping the police department, helping the emergency responders under normal circumstances. So they basically -- they got together -- the volunteers made a grid across the town and searched the entire town after the first quake.

Because this is kind of rural area, so people kind of live by themselves, kind of an outlying areas. And they were searching to make sure everybody was OK after the first quake.

And then today -- yesterday, Friday morning, the library people volunteers got the all the books back on the shelves. Our museums was put back together. All of the, you know, merchants were getting their stores back together just in time for it to get knocked down again.

But the response of the people has been amazing. And everybody -- it's a small tightknit community, and it's very isolated, so people here tend to rely on each other. So, yes, it's been - it's been really, really heartening the response.

DEAN: The power of community. All right. Jessica Weston, thanks so much for being with us. All the best to you all out there.

WESTON: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: And, of course, we'll have more on that powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake in California. The aftermath, the cleanup, and as the sun comes up, the assessment of damage. We want to speak with the sports reporter who was covering NBA's Summer League game when the quake hit.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:08] BLACKWELL: Powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake has hit Southern California, second major earthquake in less than two days., which is now starting to understand the severity of the quake.

DEAN: Extensive damage has been reported in Ridgecrest where homes shifted, multiple fires broke out, and some injuries were reported. Thankfully no deaths have been reported. A homeowner in Ridgecrest describes the exact moment the violent shaking began.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT TANNER, RIDGECREST RESIDENT (through telephone): Been a little crazy the last 24 hours. But we happen to all be outside. We live in acreage, kind of overlooking the town. And we were all outside just letting the grandkids play, and the cars just started dancing, the dogs were freaking out, the cattle behind us were going nuts. And it's been everybody standing outside since.

CYRIL VANIER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: And you just stayed there and rode it out?

TANNER: Yes. I mean, nowhere to go. They've got helicopters flying up everywhere, checking the lines. We can see a few plumes of smoke down in town. Same thing we had yesterday, we saw house fire. It looked like maybe two of them tonight.

VANIER: Do you still have power?

TANNER: We have power at our house. We didn't lose power yesterday. We didn't lose power tonight. There were some major flashes on the power lines when the second quake was going on, the 7.1. But other than that, we've had uninterrupted power.

VANIER: And was there any damage either in the house or around where you can see?

TANNER: In our house, we lost a lot of stuff yesterday. As a precaution, we pulled a lot of stuff off the shelves, took all the pictures down. So we didn't really lose anything. A few things -- the refrigerator doors opened up again and some things fell. But other than that, we're pretty secured.

VANIER: You said the grandkids were playing around? What do you guys doing as a family tonight?

TANNER: Well, my daughters didn't want to go home yesterday, so they stayed the night here. And we -- the kids have been kind of cooped up all day and so we just had them out riding their bikes.

VANIER: And what are you going do tonight? TANNER: We don't know yet. No one's wanting to go in the house. So I don't know if we're going to stay out in the yard all night or pull the R.V. around and stay in it.

VANIER: I've spoken to quite a few residents of Ridgecrest at this stage. And I spoke to some who said they were on a mattress inside their house but ready to jump out last night, and many were doing that last night. I've spoken to some who say tonight they're moving to their cars. I mean, are you considering anything like that?

TANNER: We definitely might stay outside. Last night, we didn't get any sleep. Because every time an aftershock was hit, our daughter's got a new grandbaby, so we'd run back to help her. By the time we got to her, the aftershock would be done. But other than that, we don't really have a plan.

VANIER: How are the grandkids handling it? What do you say to them?

TANNER: My grandkids -- my grandson's getting ready to turn 3. And he was a lot more freaked out yesterday. The news keeps talking about the big one that could be coming. So he's a little nervous about that. So we've been trying to reassure him that it's going to be OK. Tonight didn't help that, because it was definitely bigger tonight than last night.

VANIER: I guess he's learning to be a Californian in some ways.

TANNER: He definitely is.

VANIER: How's your outlook on the whole thing? I mean, it sounds like you've had possibly a better time of it than many other residents of Ridgecrest. But just how do you feel about this not knowing exactly, you know, where there goes from here?

TANNER: I'm born and raised here in Ridgecrest. We've had earthquakes throughout the years. I don't think it's as bad as people are showing. It seems to be played up just a little bit. But there's definitely some -- we had a friend lose a house yesterday and some classic cars. There's definitely damage in town.

VANIER: Well, look, I can tell you what we're showing now. We're showing a burning house. Because what we're concerned about is the ruptured gas -- the gas leaks, the ruptured gas lines. And we have at least one instance of a mobile home catching fire. So we're looking at that, and we're looking at early reports of any damage around the city.

TANNER: Yes, definitely. I saw that on the news earlier today. I had another friend called to check on us. He had like natural gas line ruptured into his house. So he had it shut off. He didn't have a fire. As we're talking here, the helicopters are flying above, checking the main power lines.

A lot of the city lights are still on. I can see emergency vehicles all through town. But other than that up here, it's -- another than the aftershocks, it's regular old Friday night. VANIER: A question I've been meaning to ask, did you get any kind of warning either yesterday or today about this, that this might come from USGS or other authorities?

TANNER: We didn't get any warnings at all. Been watching the news, the USGS going on about it. But I saw earlier they were doing a countdown. So we were kind of waiting for one to happen, and it never hit. But definitely the aftershocks are nonstop. We've had some pretty significant ones.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[07:30:00] BLACKWELL: All right, still to come. You know we heard from the desk editor at the local paper just a few moments ago that this community comes together. That they rally in moments like this. The mayor says more aftershocks are coming and they should be ready. We'll tell you how the community is preparing.

DEAN: And from the first silent film to the current blockbusters of today, the history of American cinema is sometimes beautiful occasionally controversial. But always inspiring. And tomorrow night, our brand new CNN Original Series: "THE MOVIES". We'll delve into the story behind the movie you love.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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consciousness. Stays in our minds the way music is recalled in our heads, those images replayed and we live our lives by them.

JULIA ROBERTS, AMERICAN ACTRESS AND PRODUCER: It brings all the elements of all of our senses together. There's really nothing else like it.

JON FAVREAU, AMERICAN ACTOR, DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, AND SCREENWRITER: Even though you're doing something incredibly personal, and in many ways incredibly selfish because you're doing something you love so much, and it gets out there in the world and it could change people's trajectories.

ALEC BALDWIN, CAST MEMBER, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: When you can go somewhere that you can pretty much guarantee, and you'll be able to set your worries aside for that period of time, it's like a drug. It's like a drug.

HOLLY HUNTER, AMERICAN ACTRESS, AND PRODUCER: It's just a direct conduit straight into your soul.

AMERICAN ACTOR, FILM DIRECTOR AND FILM NARRATOR: I grew up wanting to be the movies. It was all about the movies.

BAZ LUHRMANN, AUSTRALIAN WRITER, DIRECTOR, AND PRODUCER: Since the dawn of man we like to get around a fireplace and commune in story together. So we can feel for a few hours that we're human together.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Be sure to tune in "THE MOVIES", premieres tomorrow night at 9:00 Eastern and Pacific right here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:35:42] BLACKWELL: Second major earthquake has now rock Southern California. This one hitting their Ridgecrest last night, magnitude 7.1.

DEAN: That makes it 11 times stronger than the one that hit the day before. CNN national correspondent Sara Sidner joins us now from Ridgecrest, that's the epicenter of the powerful earthquake. And Sara, I would imagine it's clearly still dark where you are. As light comes up, we're going to finally get a chance to see all the damage that has been done there.

SIDNER: Yes, and we should be very clear that -- you know, this had happened in a far denser populated area for, for example, Los Angeles or one of the larger cities that has high-rises. You may see a lot more damage.

This is a smaller town. Somewhere that there aren't a lot of population, sort of -- really close in on each other and lots and lots of buildings. And that may have created a better scenario, if you will, for this town.

Nevertheless, it was terrifying for many of the residents here. Many of whom had never experienced this large of an earthquake. And this is a major earthquake at a 7.1. And the one thing that seismologists, and police, and rescue crews are telling people is you must be prepared because there are going to be aftershocks, and they could be quite large. We have already felt several. There have been hundreds since the 6.4 quake that happened on Thursday that everyone thought was the major quake,

Now, a 7.1, there will be hundreds likely more. Not just right after today but also in the days to come. They could go on for weeks, months even years. Police telling people, you must prepare now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would probably start taking some stuff off of the walls if there is not already down. And in high places, make sure that there's -- you're not sleeping under something that's still hung up. And we can't forget about the pets. The pets are extremely nervous during this timeframe.

And then, make sure that you have plenty of supplies when the stores are open and things like that. Make sure that you're stocking up just in case that we have something bigger than we had today. And it's a -- you know, stuff starts crumbling and these stores can't get back open. We need to make sure that, you know -- and if we can't get to you right away, you have to be able to take care of yourself for a period of time. So, I know that we all preach that we need to be prepared and I know it's difficult that we always say we will, but, now is the time. So, prepare yourself, especially for the next, I would say, week -- two weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: So, you heard the police there, telling people, "prepare yourself now." And he did mention that there is a possibility and we also heard this from seismologist Lucy Jones that there is a possibility albeit small of five to 10 percent chance that the 7.1 was not actually the largest earthquake that may happen along the faults here.

We also heard from seismologist that there are two faults that potentially ruptured, causing -- you know, that potentially causing more damage. But there are a lot of smaller aftershocks that have already been happening. So, people just need to be prepared. Take stuff off the wall, have water, have food in your home, we don't know how big these are going to get. Victor?

BLACKWELL: Sara Sidner for us there in Ridgecrest. Excellent advice there. Thank you so much.

DEAN: Last night's quake was so powerful. People felt it as far away as Las Vegas. And our next guest is there. He's going to share his experience of the earthquake. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN the most trusted name in news.

[07:43:47] DEAN: Last night's earthquake forced the NBA to cancel the end of two Summer League games in Las Vegas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 0.6 measured earthquake in California just yesterday.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And they're going to stop the game here, Mark, right (INAUDIBLE). Well, the --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we can feel tremors here in the building. The scores here at Thomas and Mack --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: So, the players were pulled from the court, fans left the stands when the quake hit last night. And this is in part why, that giant scoreboard, and the speakers there, they swayed over the court for a few seconds. Engineers were brought out to check for damage when everything calmed down. When the quake was centered in -- while the quake rather was centered in California, the shaking could be felt from Las Vegas to Mexico. And joining us now, NBA T.V. reporter Jared Greenberg.

Jared, good morning to you. I know it has been a long night. It is still the middle of the night, early morning there where you are. Explain for us what happened where you are, just walk us through the story.

[07:44:48] JARED GREENBERG, HOST, TURNER SPORTS: Well, Victor, thanks for having me. And then, let me set the scene for you for a kid who grew up in the northeast now living in Atlanta. Never had experienced an earthquake before. And I experienced two effects of an earthquake twice in the span of 16 hours. The first one happened just about 24 hours ago from right now when I was in this hotel room and felt the swaying 57 floors up. And initially, had a feeling of lightheadedness. It felt as if I was -- I was on a boat rocking.

And having that experience at around 4:10 a.m. East -- Pacific Time yesterday morning. Were at the game yesterday. And just to give you the picture of how NBA Summer League works, its two simultaneous arenas operating at the same time, and it's on the campus of UNLV and were connected by a hallway.

There's the big gym that you saw there which seats in between 17,000 and 18,000 fans. And then, the gym work I was just down the hall which is a much more intimate feel of less than 3,000 fans and where were set up with our broadcast location at center court, it's on a platform.

And it almost felt as if there were two people on either end pushing and pulling us for a solid 10 to 15 seconds more or two times. And it was remarkable that at the next stoppage of play, I said to the referees, "How can you didn't stop the game?" And he said, "For what?"

The players and referees on the court couldn't feel the movement that we all clearly could feel sitting courtside, wherein the stands because there is a buzz in the stands and in our game, they didn't stop the game at all. It happened around the end of the first quarter. They played the second quarter went to halftime, and inspected the court, recognized there was a slight crack in the court.

Both teams determined that it was very playable as they agreed to play the third quarter. And then, the NBA stepped in and said, "Hold on, for the safety of everyone else here, we're going to shut this down for tonight. And the NBA has announced that Adam Silver and company are going to come in, who's the commissioner of the NBA, and they're going to do a full building inspection of both arenas, the smaller one and the larger one to check the structural integrity before we resume any play later on today.

DEAN: Wow. And Jared, you know, it really gives you an idea of the magnitude of this thing that you were able to feel it so significantly there in Las Vegas. So, far away from the epicenter. We see that scoreboard swaying back and forth and people kind of looking around. Did you get the sense that people were figuring out? I know you said that the players couldn't feel it, but did you know what was going on when it started vibrating?

GREENBERG: Yes. And like I said, I think it was important for me earlier in the day to have that experience in this hotel room of having this room sway because it was a similar feeling again having never experienced an earthquake before. It really felt like you were on a boat, just the swaying back and forth.

And up here, where I am, 57 floors up at my hotel here on the Vegas Strip. You know, it was remarkable because I'm by myself, but I'm saying, what -- what's happening here? And you know, it's Vegas, so there weird things happening but (INAUDIBLE) faking, right?

DEAN: Right.

GREENBERG: And then, at the game, it was a similar feeling but it was much more violent at the game. And it was much more remarkable, and you just heard a lot of people and, of course, you know being out here on the west coast, you're around people who have experienced this before. And you just started hearing people call out, and I could pick it up over my microphone as I was calling the San Antonio Orlando game live on NBA T.V.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

GREENBERG: Then people saying, "earthquake, earthquake." And right away I connected the dots to what I experienced earlier in the day. And said, yes, this is it, again, we're experienced. And it was much more violent when we experienced it, which was around 8:15, 8:20 local time last night.

BLACKWELL: You know it's interesting both you and Ro Parish, who we had on the show a little earlier started the story with essentially, I'm not from here, I'm not used to this, This is not what happens from --

(CROSSTALK)

DEAN: I don't know about this. Yes, yes.

BLACKWELL: Listen, Jared Greenberg, thanks so much for sharing the story and we got to see the video again. You were next door in the arena, we're looking at T-Mack there. But thanks so much for telling us what you felt there in Las Vegas, so many miles away from Ridgecrest, where this was center.

GREENBERG: Appreciate you having me.

DEAN: Now, last hour, we go from Las Vegas. To last hour, when we spoke with the man who was at Disneyland there in Anaheim, California, getting on a rollercoaster when the earthquake hit.

BLACKWELL: So, he explained how Disney workers were able to get all those guests to safety. Watch and listen. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: You're on Space Mountain when the earthquake starts? What happened?

DAN MARTINEZ, AT DISNEYLAND DURING EARTHQUAKE: Hey, there. Good morning. So, we are on Space Mountain. We are on our way up in the spaceport, if you will, and all of a sudden, things stopped. And as we were kind of noticing things kind of go to a halt, we kind of figured somebody maybe was adjusting themselves, like in the back because a bucket seat, so you're kind of really set down.

But, all of a sudden, the lights turned on and like you just saw the Disney employees like go quick into action. And you saw them dart through, and they said we'll be right back for you, we're going inside.

So, they darted through, and once we got our duo that came and kind of rescued us out, we actually had the lights go -- another pair of lights go back onto kind of guide us through the steps because there's actually steps on the incline. And they actually had to take us row by row and pull us up from the card at the incline.

So, keep in mind, we're kind of leaning back at this entire point. They pulled us up, and manage to jump over to the steps. And slowly, wait for each row to be cleared from each vehicle at Space Mountain.

[07:50:20] BLACKWELL: So, Dan, I could imagine, if you're on a roller coaster and an earthquake hits, you don't really know where this rumble is coming from. As you just suggested, you don't know if someone behind you was kind of adjusting himself in their bucket seat. At what point did you know or were you told why you were being pulled off this ride?

MARTINEZ: Well, I will say that's the one thing the -- one piece of credit that I'll give the Disney employees. They didn't tell us right away what's going on, which kind of calmed us down a little bit, I guess. We weren't so panicked. But once we got to encounter some other people that were waiting in like the extended queue area, they said they felt the spaceship that is above everybody kind of start shaking and just rock back and forth.

So, once we heard that we're like, "What?" And so, right away, I got on my phone, and I saw on Twitter that the USGS was reporting the 7.1 number at the time.

DEAN: As you said, you thought about this at all just because of the fact that this 6.4 earthquake had come the day before. Did this enter your mind at all when you're going on rollercoasters at Disneyland, or you know, you're 150 miles plus south, maybe it didn't?

MARTINEZ: You know, we did think about it actually, I picked up my friend at the airport in Phoenix this -- yesterday morning. And that was my first question to her actually when we -- and I drove up to pick her up, I said, "Hey, do you still want to go to California? I know, the earthquake just happened. I don't mind kind of readjusting our plans."

And we both were like, "No, let's just give it a shot." However, once we figured -- once we figured out that another earthquake had happened, we kind of were a little bit more weary and are keeping ourselves a little bit more updated with the news and that we've downloaded some apps to make sure we can kind of track things as best as we can.

We even took some precautions here in the hotel overnight. Making sure we have a quick way to act if it needed.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Southern California is on alert. Bracing for more aftershocks from last night's 7.1 earthquake. Coming up, the reaction from two news anchors as they took shelter during last night's quake.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:56:25] BLACKWELL: So, what you can't see is that there are 100s of lights above us.

DEAN: Yes, many.

BLACKWELL: And when a 7.1 hits, that's the first thing you think of. And that's what these anchors in Los Angeles thought about, when they went ducking for cover during that earthquake.

DEAN: The epicenter of the quake was 125 miles from their studios in Los Angeles. But the power of the tremor is still evident.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARA DONCHEY, ANCHOR, CBS LOS ANGELES NEWS: Yes, we're making sure that nothing is going to come down in the studio here.

JUAN FERNANDEZ, ANCHOR, CBS LOS ANGELES NEWS: Yes, and it is going for a quite a bit, everybody.

DONCHEY: Aye, it's a very strong earthquake.

FERNANDEZ: It continues to (INAUDIBLE) pretty strong here.

DONCHEY: 8:21 here on the air, we're experiencing very strong shaking.

FERNANDEZ: Wow.

DONCHEY: I think we need to get under the desk.

FERNANDEZ: All right. We're going to go to break. We'll be right back after this. Wow.

DONCHEY: We'll be right back -- we'll be right back.

(END VIDEO CLIP) DEAN: Scary. But they're all OK.

BLACKWELL: Yes, and she did the right thing.

DEAN: And it's what you're supposed to do. That's right.

BLACKWELL: Is to find some shelter.

DEAN: Well, as day breaks in Southern California, search and rescue teams in the city of Ridgecrest are attempting to survey the damage there following another stronger earthquake overnight.

Stay with us. NEW DAY weekend continues right after this break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END