page_title: 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake
section_title: Damage
hierarchical_section_title: 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake / Earthquake / Damage
caption_attribution_description: English: Mission Santa Barbara, after the Santa Barbara earthquake, 29 June 1925
context_page_description: The 1925 Santa Barbara earthquake hit the area of Santa Barbara, California on June 29, with a moment magnitude between 6.5 and 6.8 and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of IX. It resulted in 13 casualties and destroyed the historic center of the city, with damage estimated at $8 million.
context_section_description: Major damage occurred in the city of Santa Barbara and along the coast, as well as north of Santa Ynez Mountains, including Santa Ynez and Santa Maria valleys.
  Though thirteen people died, it may have been far worse without the actions of three heroes, who shut off the town gas and electricity preventing a catastrophic fire.  Most homes survived the earthquake in relatively good condition, although nearly every chimney in the city crumbled. The downtown of Santa Barbara was destroyed. Only a few buildings along State Street, the main commercial street, remained standing after the earthquake. The City Cab building and The Californian and Arlington garages, all large and fully occupied parking structures, collapsed full with cars. Many other vehicles were crushed in the downtown area. At least one death resulted when a driver near the San Marcos building was crushed as walls of buildings fell onto cars parked there.
  In the business district, an area of about 36 blocks, only a few structures were not substantially damaged, and many had to be completely demolished and rebuilt. The facade of the church of the Mission Santa Barbara was severely damaged and lost its statues. Many important buildings, including hotels, offices, and the Potter Theater, were lost. The courthouse, jail, library, schools, and churches were among the buildings sustaining serious damage. Concrete curbs buckled in almost every block in Santa Barbara. Pavement on the boulevard along the beach was displaced by about 20–36 centimeters (0.66–1.18 ft), but the pavement in the downtown generally was not damaged.
  The earthen Sheffield Dam had been built near the city in 1917. It was 720 feet (220 m) long and 25 feet (7.6 m) high and held 30 million US gallons (114 million liters) of water.  The soil under the dam liquefied during the earthquake and the dam collapsed. This was the only dam to fail during an earthquake in the US until the Lower San Fernando Dam failed in 1971.  When it burst, a wall of water swept between Voluntario and Alisos Streets destroying trees, cars, three houses and flooding the lower part of town to a depth of 2 feet (0.61 m).
  The Southern Pacific Company Railroad tracks were damaged in several places between Ventura and Gaviota. In particular, a portion between Naples and Santa Barbara was badly damaged and displaced. Seaside bluffs fell into the ocean, and a slight tsunami was noted by offshore ships. The town was completely cut off from telephone and telegraph, and news from the outside world arrived by shortwave radio. The absence of post-earthquake fire permitted scientists to study earthquake damage to various types of construction.
  The American Legion and the Naval Reserves from the Naval Reserve Center Santa Barbara helped provide order amidst the chaos and manned posts and provided patrols throughout the town to inhibit looting of the damaged businesses and homes. Additional fire and police personnel arrived from as far as Los Angeles to assist the sailors and soldiers in maintaining order.
caption: Mission Santa Barbara damaged by the earthquake
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 6.0 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2012:04:14 10:36:50", "Image ExifOffset": "176", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "314", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5181", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1429", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1024"}