Photo by Amy Stewart: http://twitter.com/amyeureka
1). The Eureka City Council will hold an emergency meeting tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. to discuss the fate of the former Old Town Bar & Grill/Lazio’s building, which sits on 2nd Street between D and E in Eureka. We’re being told that the building is extremely unstable, and the City Council is likely to order its demolition ASAP, given the probability of strong aftershocks still to come.
The council will also hear a report on the Lloyd building a couple of blocks away on Fifth Street. That building is still shut down, but we’re told the situation over there is not quite as grave. With all the unreinforced masonry in Old Town/Downtown Eureka, it’s stunning that these are the only two buildings on the verge right now.
The Lloyd Building is owned by Eureka slumlord Floyd Squires III; one of Rob Arkley’s companies currently holds title to the old OTB&G/Lazio’s.
2). At the big joint city/county press conference today, Eureka Fire Chief Eric Smith gave a rough estimate of the
currently known
damage to all Eureka buildings: $12.5 million. However, there’s still a lot of ground to cover. Smith said that in the coming weeks, the city will be examining all known at-risk buildings, starting with the old, unreenforced brick ones. Anecdotally, there seem to be a lot of new cracks all around town.
Still, one of the oldest and creakiest — the Carson Block building at 3rd & F — has been given the all-clear. So it could be that we have escaped lucky.
3). The County Library suffered water damage — not the books, fortunately, and is not expected to reopen until Wednesday. Dock B at the Eureka Boat Basin has been shut down pending further evaluation, as has the Bayshore Mall.
4). Eureka Police Chief Garr Nielsen said that his 911 office fielded 700 calls in the four hours following the earthquake; the city’s OES department took 300. Still, only one person was admitted to the hospital — a hip injury at St. Joe’s. In all, 27 people sought treatment at St. Joe, mostly for minor contusions or anxiety. A few people went to the ER at Arcata’s Mad River hospital. There were no reports of looting anywhere in Eureka, said Chief Nielsen.
One California Street home went off its foundation. The family there were the only people displaced by the quake, though another Floyd Squires apartment building on H Street was briefly evacuated.
5). County Administrative Officer Phillip Smith-Hanes said today that the county will decide over the coming weeks whether it will seek federal or state disaster relief. Rep. Mike Thompson, also in attendance at the presser (along with Assm. Wes Chesbro), said that the head of the Federal Emergency Management Administration has been in constant contact.
In the meantime, Smith-Hanes said that the county and cities would like to hear from anyone who has suffered major damages or losses of property. Here are the numbers:
Eureka:
441-4164
Arcata:
822-2426
Ferndale:
786-4224
Fortuna:
715-7600
County (unincorporated):
445-7245
This article appears in Top of the Charts.
Thanks Hank!
It saddens me greatly to think of the awesome bar and grill building being demolished! That old brick building was so majestic!
It may be majestic, but in the 12 years I’ve lived in Eureka, I’d estimate that the Lazio building has been vacant at least 75% of the time. It’s sad to lose old buildings, but the removal of the Lazio building may very well make way for a building or buildings that will be occupied by active businesses, enriching Old Town further.
I thought the Assyrian sphinx’s that hang in the window belonged to the MadDoctor FeelGood, he bought the building a few years back, but your saying it is owned by Arkley?
From what I’ve been told, Lazio convinced SN to buyout controlling ownership in the building four of five years ago. Lazio had been trying to sell for years. SN kept the building on the market – and Badgley bought it from them a couple years ago. Badgley planned to remodel and move his office there, but it never happen. Building actually went down hill under his ownership. End of last summer, SN foreclosed since Badgley was no longer making payments.
Thanks, Jeff!
Many who were staying at the Bayshore Best Western were displaced. They essentiall closed it down and we all left. We spent Saturday night at a Arcada motel and drove home to North Oregon. So we just wanted you to know more than one family was displaced.
Thanks, Don, and sorry for your troubles. Hope you took a good story home, at least.
Sue, I see your point. Hopefully the next building will be as pretty and unique. I hope there will be plenty more space and offices to use up. Hopefully not some industrial mishap looking building
The Journal was housed in the Carson Block Building (3rd Floor) during the last big quake in 1992. (We were working that Saturday.) It’s only masonry (brick) on one side, which certainly could crumble. The other three sides are wood frame, so it just flexed, cracking plaster. Eureka fared pretty well in that one; not so Ferndale.
Remember looking at the maps of the ‘soft’ spots in Eureka – where there is a danger of liquefaction – looked like little bay inlets all throughout the Old Town area? I vaguely remember some discussion about that, whether people were to be notified, etc. But I remember being surprised – the areas must have silted in over a long period of time.
The areas were graded to develop the town. Sloughs and shoreline were filled with crap. When Old town experiences larger accelerations in future eq’s it will be a bad place to be.
Earthquake energy (waves) are amplified in soft sediments. Physics tells us that energy must be conserved and cannot be "destroyed". The energy of a seismic wave is roughly characterized by its velocity and amplitude. Seismic waves travel slower in less dense sediments and to maintain constant energy must increase in amplitude creating greater displacements of the surface.
…or do the waves attain higher amplitude in the softer (less rigid) sediment and consequently slow down