22 December 2003
San Luis Obispo
Earthquake

Paso Robles, California

Here are a few pictures of the damage in Paso Robles California from the 22 December 2003 earthquake.

I was at work, at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, sitting at my desk when the earthquake happened. I have lived my entire life, 42 years, in California, and this is the first time I was able to say "this is an earthquake" as it was happening.  What was surprising to me was the sound, there was a loud audible component of the earthquake. After the first roll was over and I could see all was fine in my office, I started to check with everyone I support at the University. I also contacted Katie to see that all was OK in her building. It only took about an hour for the University to realize all was OK on campus.

I had heard that there was more damage in Paso, so I went to my car and got out my radio. I am a licensed amateur radio operator and I participate with the local Amateur Radio Emergency Services (ARES) and Radio Amateur Communications Emergency Services (RACES) through the
San Luis Obispo Emergency County Emergency Communications Council (SLOECC). SLOECC was already active and starting to man the Emergency Communication Centers (ECC) around the county. I checked in and informed them I would be available later in the day.

Katie's office was released to go home to check on their homes. We took off and headed to Santa Margarita. At home, all was OK. The champagne glasses had fallen over in the china hutch; none had broken. One florescent fixture fell in the garage and broke. That was all the damage for us.

I headed back to work. All was fine and the University was slowly closing down for the day. Being in the middle of Christmas break, it was already very slow. I called my boss and told him I was going to take off the rest of the day and go do SLOECC stuff, it was about 2:15 at this point. . I checked in and headed back to home. I changed clothes,  picked up some extra stuff and headed to Paso, that is where I had been assigned.

As I got into Paso, I could not see any damage at first. I headed to the Paso ECC. The traffic on the main street was backed up really bad. I later found out the street was blocked off just four or five blocks ahead of me. I turned down a side street and went in on a side street. I checked into the center and went to work with the others that were already there. It was now about 3:00, the Paso Emergency Operation Center (EOC) was in full swing.

About 4:00, I got a chance to talk a walk out to the main area to check in with our operators that were out at the scene. I took the a couple of quick pictures as I walked up. I found Terry and Sean and asked Terry if she had her camera, she had a disappointed no in her voice. They were ready to spend the night or even leave town, the truck was packed with cloths, food and the dogs, but she had not brought her camera. I was headed back into the EOC, so I handed her my camera and said shoot away.

The left image is before the quake,
the right is after.
This photo was taken from the Pan Jewelers website http://www.panjewelers.com/Index2.html