Northern California parish evacuates after earthquake, tsunami warning

CNA Staff, Dec 6, 2024 / 11:25 am (CNA).

An earthquake and subsequent tsunami warning in northern California on Thursday led to widespread scurrying for higher ground, including the parish office of at least one Catholic church.

The earthquake, which measured 7.0 on the magnitude scale, was felt at about 10:45 a.m. local time in Humboldt County, said Rex Atienza, office manager of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Arcata, which is about 1.5 miles north of Arcata Bay and about 6 miles east of the Pacific Ocean.

“There was a big shake,” Atienza told CNA by telephone. “And after people started leaving the building and were outside, when I was in the doorway I could still feel the building moving from left to right.”

“It kept going. I would say maybe 20 to 30 seconds. Which seemed longer in real time,” he said.

Several members of the parish staff left the parish grounds for high elevations. A nearby public school was also evacuated, he said.

Some people in the area went to a local high school, others to a supermarket, and two parish priests went to the Newman Center at nearby Cal Poly Humboldt, Atienza said.

He said the parish building remained empty for about an hour and 45 minutes until he got an all-clear message from the Humboldt County regional government.

Arcata is in the Diocese of Santa Rosa, where much of the early concern was centered.

About 110 miles to the southeast, in Marin County, Father Gabriel Wankar felt the quake Thursday morning and rushed to the parish school of St. Anselm Catholic Church in Ross, where he is pastor.

“I felt some strange movement but before I could know what was happening a tsunami alert went off on my phone and I realized what was happening. So, I immediately headed to the school to be with the kids,” Wankar told CNA by email.

Kids and staff stayed in place, he said. No damage or injuries were reported.

Ross is in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, where the Catholic schools’ central office sent principals a message saying that parents were welcome to pick up their children but that the Catholic schools would stay open unless public schools in the area closed.

The earthquake and subsequent tsunami warning were national news for a portion of Thursday, as fears of a damaging series of long waves set off by the quake sent people near the coast scurrying for safer places.

At 10:49 a.m. Pacific time Thursday the National Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami warning for the coast of Northern California and southern Oregon, based on an earthquake that took place in the Pacific Ocean about 45 miles southwest of Eureka, California. The agency canceled the tsunami warning a little more than an hour later, at 11:54 a.m., according to the National Tsunami Warning Center’s website.

The northern coast of California near Cape Mendocino “is one of the most seismically active areas in the United States” and had five earthquakes “close to magnitude 7.0” before Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.

Catholic World Report