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At 4:16 in the morning on Friday, December 4th, an earthquake on the Hayward Fault that measured 4.1 in magnitude rattled a few dishes and woke a few light sleepers near its epicenter, three miles east of Richmond. "It was a strong, sharp jolt, but there was no real duration to it," said a staff research associate at the UC-Berkeley Seismology Lab, Rick McKenzie. "It was just enough to wake me up." There was only one aftershock at 7:31 that same morning, registering 1.7 on the Richter scale. "It actually didn't even wake me up," contradicted an MV freshman, Tara Cooke. "I heard about it later."
Little damage was reported in the East Bay area from the quake; no apparent injuries were caused. The damage that did result from the quake consisted mainly of broken windows and water heaters. Kirby's Restaurant in El Cerrito was one of the buildings affected, with its main plate glass window shattered. Roger Gonzalez, the restaurant's general manager, approximated the damage at $1,200. The quake was also the cause of frustration on the BART tracks between Richmond and MacArthur stations, but spokesman Mike Healy said that power was able to be restored by 4:41 a.m. Further delays resulted from inspections of the tracks, which were generally completed by 6:30 a.m.
David Oppenheimer, seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said that 17 earthquakes of a magnitude-3 or greater have shaken the northern part of the Hayward Fault since 1949. The most recent of these was a 4.2 which hit in June 1994.
Spokeswoman for the Association of Bay Area Governments, Laura Stuchinsky, said, "We're hoping people will regard this [the Dec. 4th quake] as a wake-up alarm, because it's so easy to get too relaxed between quakes."
However, McKenzie said that this recent quake does not necessarily hint at a much larger, much more disastrous earthquake. The Friday tremor is generally described by seismologists as one of those typical shakings which San Franciscan residents have long since accustomed themselves to. "It was a jolt," said Ellen Schnur, whose residence sits exactly on the epicenter, "but then I guess I'm used to these. I'm a Californian, so I've been through some pretty intense earthquakes."
A smaller earthquake on December 13, measuring 3.0 on the Richter scale, was centered between Walnut Creek and Clayton. It caused a palm tree to fall across power lines, and the result was a power outage of 2,000 homes in the area.
