Twenty-nine years ago today, a violent, pre-dawn earthquake shook the San Fernando Valley from its sleep, and sunrise revealed widespread devastation, with dozens killed and $25 billion in damage.
Perhaps the most dramatic damage from the quake was the freeway destruction, which threatened to cripple the region’s transportation system.
On the Santa Monica Freeway, Interstate 10, which ferries hundreds of thousands of commuters between the west side of Los Angeles and downtown every day, an overpass at Fairfax Avenue buckled like a wave, dropping to about six feet from street level. Overpass that collapsed on Highway 10 in the Northridge/Reseda area at the epicenter of earthquake in 1994
More horrific was the collapse of a four-level intersection of Interstates 5 and 14, known as the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways. Cars could be seen crushed beneath the collapsed intersection; huge slabs of steel-reinforced concrete were splayed at crazy angles.Cars lie smashed by the collapsed Interstate 5 connector few hours after Northridge earthquake, on January 17, 1994, in Sylmar, California. The last big earthquake to hit the area before this had been on June 28, 1992.
measured 7.5 on the Richter scale and was followed a few hours later by a magnitude 6.6 quake in the Big Bear area.All the news you need to know, every day
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