TRONA, Calif. _ As the trio of researchers eyed the aging buildings in Trona, it was hard for them to tell which were severely damaged by the earthquakes that pummeled this San Bernardino County town in recent days _ and which were simply old and abandoned.
"Some of this damage was already here," said Kenneth O'Dell, 55, a structural engineer.
But he nonetheless noted that the earthquake had hit Trona hard, particularly because the walls of most buildings were not reinforced with steel or other material that can keep them upright, or prevent cracking during severe tremors.
"It looks like most of these structures were built during the 1930s and 1940s," O'Dell said. "So it makes sense that they weren't ready for this kind of shaking."
O'Dell had arrived from Los Angeles on Saturday with engineer Martin Hudson and his 25-year-old son, geologist Kenneth Hudson, to assess earthquake damage in Trona and nearby Ridgecrest after massive quakes rocked the region.
Their goal was to study the structural damage of the buildings in Trona so they could understand how exactly the earthquakes affected those structures and surrounding areas. These findings, they hoped, could someday be published in a research paper and help guide future geologists and engineers.
They stopped Saturday afternoon on California 178 between Trona and Ridgecrest, where the elder Hudson stood on one of the fault ruptures caused by Friday's magnitude 7.1 quake.
"It's moved everything three feet to the right," said Hudson, 52, an engineer who forms part of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, an organization based in Oakland that brought researchers together in the Ridgecrest area to study the effects of the earthquakes.
After assessing the fault rupture, the three researchers hopped in their car and headed to Trona, about thirty miles northeast of Ridgecrest. At the side of a faded pink house at the community's entrance, the researchers noted that soil liquefaction had caused portions of the ground to crack and collapse _ some of the soil had started turning into a liquid state, the researchers explained. Nearby, a chimney had caved in on one of the houses.
"We saw a lot of this type of damage in the '94 Northridge earthquake," O'Dell said.
In the end, the three anticipate that their research could help prevent future building damage during earthquakes.
"The goal of our research is to improve the designs of these structures so that they are not as susceptible, and we're hoping that our work today can contribute to that," Kenneth Hudson said.
As scientists try to glean lessons in the quakes' aftermath, residents are still sorting through the damage. Elsewhere in Trona, a family of five sought shelter from the scorching sun on Saturday afternoon under the shade of a tree. In front of them was a deflated air mattress, which some of them planned to sleep on outside that night.
None of them were injured in the quake, but they felt overwhelmed by the work ahead, cleaning up everything they had accumulated over the decades. Cynthia Thompson and her father decided to drive back to their house, along with her 8-year-old daughter, Brooke, to take another look at the damage.
On the way, they ran into their neighbor Susan Witcher, who was cleaning up her home, along with family members, before heading to stay with her father. Their home's chimney had collapsed and fissures lined the walls and roof. Witcher was scared that the house could come crashing down at any moment.
"I have lived here for 35 years," said Witcher, 67, as she carried out boxes of kitchenware to her truck. "And I just had to throw away 45 years' worth of stuff. We don't know if we will ever be able to move back in."
The Thompsons headed around the corner to their home, where broken glasses, toys and food littered the floor. A television had landed face down. Although the home did not seem to have suffered severe structural damage, it was impossible to walk through hallways, and rooms were blocked by belongings. Sinkholes had formed near the exterior walls.
"It looks like a tornado just hit," Thompson said.
Brooke cheerily showed a reporter the window out of which she had jumped during the earthquake. Others were unable to make a quick escape: Thompson said her mother uses a wheelchair and her father had recently endured a bone marrow transplant. Before the earthquake, Thompson had been going back and forth to Los Angeles to take him to hospital visits.
"It's just been a lot," she said, locking up the door to her house.
