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American Morning
California Earthquake
Aired December 23, 2003 - 07:16 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It felt like a shockwave and a bomb blast. That is how one resident of Paso Robles, California, described the magnitude 6.5 earthquake that jolted the region yesterday.
For the very latest on that, we go to Rusty Dornin. She is in Paso Robles this morning.
Good morning -- Rusty.
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Soledad, downtown Paso Robles was the hardest hit by that 6.5 earthquake. And one of the buildings that completely collapsed was the House of Bread. Now, if you look in there, it looks like the house of rock and rubble. You can see why officials were very fearful that someone might have been trapped inside there. They spent much of the afternoon and last night with dogs and with search crews, searching over that rubble. They are very confident that no one is in there. They have called off the rescue portion of this search.
Now, as we pan a little bit to the left, you can see the other building that was damaged in this quake, the Pan Jewelers. Now, this is the historic building that had the clock tower on it. It was built in 1892. And the collapse of that roof on the left there was what killed two women who were around the corner who were out in front of the dress shop there. Now, we don't know if they were trying to run out of the building or if they were just walking along the sidewalk. This is the holiday season. There was apparently a lot of people downtown, a lot of people on the sidewalks. It's pretty incredible that no one else was injured in that.
But what is also interesting is one of the tenants of that building did say that the owner had not done some seismic upgrades to the building, which might have been one of the reasons it collapsed. But a very similar earthquake in 1983 in Coalinga about 60 miles from here, the entire downtown collapsed because it was unreinforced masonry, brick, and that really does not do well in an earthquake, especially of that magnitude.
Another interesting point here, Paso Robles used to be a sulfur springs spot. It was a place people used to come for hot springs and that sort of thing. Apparently, the earthquake uncapped one of the sulfur springs, so you've got a lot of the smell of rotten eggs running through the town.
And on a last note, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be here doing a tour at 10:00 a.m. local -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: All right, Rusty Dornin for us this morning. Rusty, thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired December 23, 2003 - 07:16 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It felt like a shockwave and a bomb blast. That is how one resident of Paso Robles, California, described the magnitude 6.5 earthquake that jolted the region yesterday.
For the very latest on that, we go to Rusty Dornin. She is in Paso Robles this morning.
Good morning -- Rusty.
RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Soledad, downtown Paso Robles was the hardest hit by that 6.5 earthquake. And one of the buildings that completely collapsed was the House of Bread. Now, if you look in there, it looks like the house of rock and rubble. You can see why officials were very fearful that someone might have been trapped inside there. They spent much of the afternoon and last night with dogs and with search crews, searching over that rubble. They are very confident that no one is in there. They have called off the rescue portion of this search.
Now, as we pan a little bit to the left, you can see the other building that was damaged in this quake, the Pan Jewelers. Now, this is the historic building that had the clock tower on it. It was built in 1892. And the collapse of that roof on the left there was what killed two women who were around the corner who were out in front of the dress shop there. Now, we don't know if they were trying to run out of the building or if they were just walking along the sidewalk. This is the holiday season. There was apparently a lot of people downtown, a lot of people on the sidewalks. It's pretty incredible that no one else was injured in that.
But what is also interesting is one of the tenants of that building did say that the owner had not done some seismic upgrades to the building, which might have been one of the reasons it collapsed. But a very similar earthquake in 1983 in Coalinga about 60 miles from here, the entire downtown collapsed because it was unreinforced masonry, brick, and that really does not do well in an earthquake, especially of that magnitude.
Another interesting point here, Paso Robles used to be a sulfur springs spot. It was a place people used to come for hot springs and that sort of thing. Apparently, the earthquake uncapped one of the sulfur springs, so you've got a lot of the smell of rotten eggs running through the town.
And on a last note, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will be here doing a tour at 10:00 a.m. local -- Soledad.
O'BRIEN: All right, Rusty Dornin for us this morning. Rusty, thanks.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
