Tuesday’s earthquake raises concerns about safety if a big one were to occur

MONTEREY COUNTY, CALIF. (KION-TV)- Tuesday's 4.4 magnitude earthquake saw minor damage, like at a Dollar General in Hollister.

Luckily, no major reports of damage came in regarding homes, businesses, or roads.

Research Geophysicist of the US Geological Survey Sarah Minson says this type of quake is typical.

“These sorts of earthquakes are pretty common, and in fact, they can produce strong shaking,” Minson said. “So the thing that's important to understand about earthquake magnitude is not how much shaking produced it. It is the literal size of the earthquake.”

A quake of this magnitude brought some concern to local bridges based on how it felt, but not for Cal-Trans, who say they didn't need to inspect infrastructure after the quake.

They explained the reasoning by saying in the part quote:

“Yesterday’s earthquake did not go above our threshold of 5.5 to trigger active inspections of our structures. Completed structures are typically unaffected by minor earthquakes such as yesterday.”

If you want to know when the shaking from these earthquakes will happen, there are apps for that.

Things like MyShake send out a notification when shaking is expected to happen. The USGS says these notifications are accurate, considering they’re the ones providing the information.

“That project will send an alert to the wireless emergency alert system,” Minson said. “That's the same way that you get amber alerts or, you know, flash flood alerts or anything else in the event that the shaking will be life-threatening.”

If these earthquakes are life-threatening, they will send out an alert even if you don’t have an app.

“The US Geological Survey triggers an alert if you are in danger from earthquake shaking,” Minson said. “Anything else you choose to do, any other information you get that's just gravy on top.”

If an earthquake like that were to happen, Cal-Trans says they have plans in place where local teams in the affected areas immediately go to assess any damages to the highways and bridges.

Cal-Trans also told Karl that bridges are always inspected every two years, even if no earthquakes happen.