Strongest Earthquake in 20 Years Strikes Southern California

A video captures the exact moment a 6.4 magnitude quake strikes Searles Valley just after 10:30 in the morning on July 4th.

The damage inside a Ridgecrest liquor store near the epicenter shows the damage the rolling quake caused, there’s broken bottles everywhere, puddles of booze and an avalanche of boxes litter the aisles.

Seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones, says it’s been a long time since Southern California shook this hard, “At 6.4 this is the largest earthquake recorded in Southern California since 1999, magnitude 7.1 hector mine earthquake happened 20 years ago.” 

You can see chunks of earth falling and the shaking caused the asphalt on this road to tear.

Kylee Burton was tending bar at DJ’s Pub in Ridgecrest when the quake struck, “I was standing behind the bar and I thought it was like a sonic boom,” adding then everything around her started shaking and falling, “we had bottles start like flying off the shelves and breaking next to me.”

She says once their customer made a run for it, they did too, “There was one customer in here that took off running and there was another coworker that pulled me through the kitchen and there was glass shattering and breaking there too and he pulled me outside,” then she says once outside it seemed like chaos with fires and sirens and every time they thought it was safe to go in, one of dozens of aftershocks would hit, “and we’re all like screaming and running outside every time there’s one.”

She says she’s experienced quakes in the past but nothing like this, “I‘ve never been that scared in my entire life.”

Governor Newsom declared a state of emergency.