Overview
- A magnitude 5.6 earthquake struck near Willits in Mendocino County on Thursday, causing visible shaking, minor injuries and localized damage but no major structural failures.
- State officials reported large numbers of pre-shaking alerts with the governor’s office saying more than 1 million people received warnings and Cal OES saying the MyShake app sent nearly 657,000 alerts.
- The MyShake app, developed by the UC Berkeley Seismology Lab with USGS ShakeAlert and funded by Cal OES, recently passed about 4.5 million downloads and issues alerts for quakes of roughly magnitude 4.5 or greater.
- PG&E said thousands briefly lost power after the quake but most outages were restored the same day, while the USGS recorded aftershocks all below magnitude 2.7 and local inspectors checked buildings for safety.
- Officials urged residents to enable earthquake alerts and keep practicing drop, cover and hold on because short warning seconds can reduce injuries and agencies continue to monitor regional seismic activity.