Day: December 5, 2024

By Larry Judkins

Glenn County Observer

A powerful earthquake, followed by a series of apparent aftershocks, struck off the Northern California coast late Thursday morning.

The seismic event triggered a tsunami warning from the southwest coast of Oregon, south to Santa Cruz. This advisory has since been cancelled.

At about 10:45 a.m., this reporter was sitting in his recliner at home, reading a book on his Tablet, when suddenly a message appeared at the top of the page warning that an earthquake had just occurred near my location.

Sure enough, literally a few seconds later, the house began to shake and creak. This lasted several seconds.

When the shaking stopped, my phone received a message advising me to “drop and cover” – a little late, but thanks for trying. Hopefully, someday the science of predicting earthquakes will improve enough that warnings will provide enough advanced notice as to be useful.

The December 5 temblor hit at 10:44 a.m., about 39 miles northwest of Petrolia, Humboldt County. It had a depth of roughly eight miles.

It measured 7.0 on the so-called Richter Scale.

Despite its distance, it was felt throughout Glenn County.

The Richter Scale is a logarithmic scale. Thus, a quake measuring 6.0 is not twice as strong as one measuring 3.0.

An earthquake measuring 3.0 is roughly the equivalent of 20,000 kilograms of TNT, while a 6.0 quake is about the equivalent of 60 million kilograms of TNT.

As for a 7.0 earthquake, it is equivalent to approximately 20 billion kilograms of TNT.

A few of the notable California earthquakes include the Northridge quake of January 17, 1994, which measured 6.7 and killed 57 people; the Loma Prieta Earthquake (also known as the World Series Earthquake) of October 17, 1989, which measured 6.9 and killed 63 people; and the Sylmar or San Fernando Valley Earthquake of February 9, 1971, which measured 6.6 and killed between 58 and 65 people.

This reporter was a junior high school student living in Whittier in Southern California when the Sylmar quake happened. It struck at 6 a.m. on a Tuesday and shook me out of bed.

Of course, the granddaddy of all California earthquakes in modern times was the San Francisco quake of April 18, 1906. It measured an estimated 7.9 (the Richter Scale was devised in 1935) and, along with the fire that resulted from it, killed between 700 and 3,000 people.

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Adelia Biggs died on Monday, November 18, 2024. The seventh of eight children born to Martin and Martha Erwin, she was born in Florence, Alabama, on April 23, 1935.

She moved to Willows in 1964 with her two children, Michele and Jay Poulter. She met and married Roy Biggs and had two more children, Michael and Fred (Ted) Biggs.

She worked for the Glenn County Office of Education as a bus driver for 20 years and was inducted into the Glenn County Hall of Fame.

She is survived by her younger sister, Cornelia (Connie); children Michele, Jay (wife, Jill), Mike and (wife, Becky), and Ted (wife, Chandra); grandchildren Jessica, Jake (wife, Camille), Josh, Riley, Gage, Michaela (husband, Derek), Teresa, and Tyler; and great-grandchildren Joey (husband, Dante), and Benjamin. She was preceded in death by her husband, who died in 2007.

A memorial service is planned for 1 p.m. on Saturday, December 7, at the Open Gate Christian Fellowship in Willows. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that a donation be made in Adelia’s honor to the Susan G. Komen Foundation or the Special Olympics.