Southern California got a one-two punch from Mother Nature on Sunday, when an earthquake in Ventura County caused a lot of shaking and the first tropical storm in decades poured rain on the area.
At 2:41 p.m., a 5.1-magnitude earthquake shocked people in Southern California, who were already getting ready for the last of Hurricane Hilary, which had brought hours of heavy rain in the region’s driest month of the year. At least a dozen aftershocks with a magnitude of 3.0 or higher happened.
The epicenter of the earthquake was about 4 miles southeast of Ojai, which is about 80 miles northwest of Los Angeles.
Shaking was recorded in Ventura, Camarillo, Oxnard, Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Santa Barbara, parts of LA’s San Fernando Valley, Malibu, Porter Ranch, Manhattan Beach, and other places.
At the Tres Hermanas restaurant in Ojai, images and the jarring sound of shaking were caught on tape. Ojai is a small, beautiful town about 12 miles north of Ventura on the edge of Los Padres National Forest. It has a lively downtown village area with art studios, shops, and bars.
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There were no reports of major harm right away. The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department flew over Lake Casitas Dam, Matilija Dam, and the city of Ojai and found that none of them were damaged.
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In Los Angeles, the city fire department went into Earthquake Operation mode, and all 106 neighborhood fire stations started checking for damage.
“It’s interesting that it’s in this place,” said Dr. Lucy Jones, a seismologist. “This is the first time we’ve seen a 5 in this exact spot and even in the Ventura basin since 1932.”
Jones said that in 1941, there was a quake with a magnitude of 5.1 to the west of Sunday’s quake. Some of the waves from the Northridge Earthquake in 1994 came from the east.
After a quake hit Southern California on Sunday, the word “hurriquake” was all the rage.
Jones said that there will probably be more waves in the next few days.
After the early afternoon quake, the phrase #hurriquake quickly became a trend on X.
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At the same time as the earthquake, a tropical storm hit the area around Los Angeles for the first time in decades. Southern California is under a tropical storm warning for the first time ever, and most of Los Angeles County is under a flash flood alert. Rain is expected to continue through Sunday night.
Since September 25, 1939, when a hurricane lost its hurricane title just before making landfall in Long Beach, no tropical storm has hit Southern California. The end result was terrible.
Millions of people in Southern California got emergency alerts on their phones back-to-back. Sunday, the first one warned of a flash flood, and the second one warned of an earthquake in Ventura County.
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