NAPA, California—
It has been four days since a 6.0 earthquake rattled Napa County, but dozens of aftershocks are still being felt by people there.
The biggest aftershock on Thursday had a magnitude of 2.4, and now geologists have pinpointed the epicenter of Sunday’s earthquake, which is actually underwater. Shockingly, there is little damage in that area.
Steve Johnson was sleeping on his sailboat when the quake happened early Sunday morning. Even though he was floating a couple of feet away from the epicenter at the Napa Valley Marina, the quake did not even wake him.
“I mean I woke up because people were calling me, in the water I hardly felt it comparatively,” said Johnson.
On land the marina saw little damage, a few dry docked boats slipped off their supports, but were unharmed. Although geologists say the epicenter was under the water they were floating on, Johnson’s boat and the others were all fine.
Johnson added, “In the water the deep keeled boat, I didn’t feel it. Nothing fell over even, not even a bottle fell over, nothing.”
But from the epicenter, the quake sent out long cracks along the West Napa Fault Line. Stone Bridge School’s parking lot was split down the middle about 2 miles away from the marina.
The school has other damage as well. “[The earthquake] perfectly just spread this gap, and this used to be a nice lock there in the post,” said the school’s principal Bill Bindewald as he showed FOX40 the damage around his campus.
Classes were supposed to start at the school on Tuesday, but Principal Bindewald says it was pushed back a week. “We call them Earthquake Days,” said Principal Bindewald. “It’s going to be a new thing.”
While people on land at the marina did feel a jolt, the damage was relatively minor when compared to the destruction in the city of Napa. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, it is common for the majority of damage in an earthquake to occur at least a concentric of a mile away from the epicenter.
As for Steve Johnson, he was glad he was sleeping above the earthquake and in the water. “The absorption of the water, absorbing shock and not being so close to the land, that made a difference obviously,” he said.
The owners of the marina told FOX40 this is not the first time there was an earthquake centered there; there was a much smaller one back in the year 2000.
