After being rocked by an earthquake this week, some towns in Humboldt County face power outages and unlivable conditions.
Resident Christine Holland comforting her son while getting food and water at the Rio Dell fire station. is still deep in recovery mode.
Rio Dell sits along the beautiful and rural Redwood Coast in Humboldt County, about a five-hour drive north of San Francisco. Some homes there are now uninhabitable. And for days, many residents have been trying to get by with little to no cell phone service., a reporter for the news site The Lost Coast Outpost, says the earthquake brought a lesson in preparedness for the whole state.
“We didn't expect a quake of this size to hit any community this hard,” he says. “But a big problem has been the lack of telecommunications, which is a big problem after an emergency like this.”“We live in a very active area for earthquakes. There's what's called the Mendocino Triple Junction, where three plates come together off the coast of Humboldt County here. So we're not unused to earthquakes, but this one, it felt a lot stronger, possibly because it was more shallow.
“Power went out countywide to about 70,000 customers. But Rio Dell has had the hardest time recovering. They still have more than 3,000 people without running water, many still without power. And, a number of buildings fell off their foundations and have been deemed uninhabitable by building inspectors.”Two people died and they had medical emergencies. And because of the earthquake and the emergency response, they weren't able to get medical care in time. Another 17 people were injured.
“One family I spoke with, they live in a low income apartment complex where they're not allowed to use generators. They're not even allowed to bring candles into their apartment. And making matters worse, they have a four-year-old son who has a rare medical condition and they need to keep his medications cold. And they were unable to do that without ice and without electricity.”
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