Does Sacramento experience Earthquakes? (San Francisco, Fairfield: home, new construction, university)

[Rwarky]

Does the Sacramento area ever experience earthquakes? If so, how often?

[shiphead]

last earthquake i experience in Sacramento in the mid 90's and it was a very small one. The windows shaked and it was over. lol

[cityx]

I remember that one. It was in early September, 1994 between 4-6am. I believe it was centred in the Truckee area.
Sacramento, or most of the Central Valley for that matter, doesn't have any fault lines to create substantial earthquakes. There are some smaller faults as you get closer to Vacaville, Fairfield - and of course the Bay Area has tons of them. If we feel any earthquakes it's usually the larger ones from the Sierra or the Bay Area.
Below is a fascinating link from the KXTV Channel 10 news studio in Sacramento during the Loma Prieta quake in San Francisco (as the quake was happening). It was substantially felt all over the Sacramento area.


YouTube - Loma Prieta Earthquake Live - KXTV News 10

[KidBlue]

I believe there hasn't been an earthquake centered in Sacramento in recorded history. I've lived here over 40 years and I've felt two. One in Coalinga which was barely detectable here and the Loma Prieta earthquake. That one set off all the car alarms at Sacrament State University but no damage anywhere in Sac, just in San Francisco.

[Guingirl]

I remember being little in the 70s and feeling one or two of them and then hadn't felt one until the Loma Prieta one in 1989.

I had heard stories of people in SF and my aunt and uncle were at the World Series and told me some stories.

Its very rare to feel them in Sacramento.

[Dennis P]

The Sacramento area isn't as prone to earthquakes as the Bay Area and the Tahoe / Reno areas. I do know that it feels them if the quakes from the aforementioned areas are strong enough. When I lived in Sacramento in the early 90s, I spoke with people who had felt the Loma Prieta quake in October of 1989. They basically said that even though it could be felt, there was no damage, fortunately. The same could be said of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake which destroyed most of the city. I had read that people in Sacramento could feel it, but the area was spared any damage, amazingly enough.

I guess it would be safe to say that earthquakes in Sacramento are extremely rare.

[ukiyo-e]

Originally Posted by cityx

I remember that one. It was in early September, 1994 between 4-6am. I believe it was centred in the Truckee area.
Sacramento, or most of the Central Valley for that matter, doesn't have any fault lines to create substantial earthquakes. There are some smaller faults as you get closer to Vacaville, Fairfield - and of course the Bay Area has tons of them. If we feel any earthquakes it's usually the larger ones from the Sierra or the Bay Area.
Below is a fascinating link from the KXTV Channel 10 news studio in Sacramento during the Loma Prieta quake in San Francisco (as the quake was happening). It was substantially felt all over the Sacramento area.


YouTube - Loma Prieta Earthquake Live - KXTV News 10

Interesting video. I lived in San Francisco during Loma Prieta and it didn't feel like it lasted that long to me, yet in the video they claimed it went on for over a minute. I purchased a book of photos that was published after the quake, called "Fifteen Seconds," which was supposedly how long the quake lasted. It was widely speculated at the time that the only reason the damage was as minor as it was was because of the quake's brevity. I wonder if there's something about the geology of the Central Valley that caused the waves to travel more slowly under Sacramento, prolonging the shaking motion?

The funny thing about that quake was that I had an old Bang and Olufson turntable that had stopped working a year or so earlier, and I'd never bothered to take it in to get it repaired. When I got home from work after the quake, it was spinning just fine, all by itself. I guess it had a short somewhere and the shaking re-connected some wires somewhere.

[Dennis P]

I meant to add to my original post that I think Sacramento is more prone to flooding than earthquakes, being that it's located at the confluence of two rivers. If I'm not mistaken, the area has had a few floods, the most recent one being sometime in the mid 90s(?). Someone feel free to jump in and correct me or elaborate.

[iconb]

Flooding is more of a street level problem in Sacramento I don't know that there has ever been serious problems with flooding from the rivers. I just moved back here but did live here in the 70's and 80's but I can't recall there ever being big flooding problem.

The only Earthquake I ever remember was in April of '74 or '75, I just remember that it was a short time after Easter and I was either 5 or 6 and I thought someone was trying to steal the house.

I think that was year after it snowed in Folsom, it was like the end of the world was coming.

[wburg]

Originally Posted by iconb

Flooding is more of a street level problem in Sacramento I don't know that there has ever been serious problems with flooding from the rivers. I just moved back here but did live here in the 70's and 80's but I can't recall there ever being big flooding problem.

Flooding was a massive problem in Sacramento, one that prompted levee construction, street raising, dam construction and other heavy-duty public works projects for over a century, and it's still a risk. Laguna/Elk Grove had a big flood a decade or so ago, so did Rio Linda. We've had good luck the past decade or so, but we haven't had a really bad rain year in that time. North Natomas' levee has been downgraded, to the point where, starting in 2009, no new construction will be allowed there unless it is built on top of a nine-foot berm.