An intensity survey of households affected by the Northridge, California, earthquake of 17 January 1994

Abstract Following the Northridge, California, earthquake of 17 January 1994, the Humboldt Earthquake Education Center (HEEC) conducted a telephone survey of approximately 6000 adults from within the felt region to study the earthquake's effects on individual households. We tabulate human responses to the earthquake and observations of the earthquake's effects on inanimate objects from the HEEC survey as a function of independently assigned U.S. Geological Survey Modified Mercalli (USGS MM) intensity for the same communities. Human responses and subjective judgments about the severity of shaking, when averaged over a large number of samples, are useful discriminants of the levels of strong ground motion up to those associated with USGS MM intensity VII, notwithstanding that individual human responses and subjective judgments are notoriously unreliable. A threshold of strong ground motion corresponds to USGS MM intensity of about VII, above which over 40% of respondents described the earthquake as “violent” and most people reported difficulty standing, furniture displaced, and some damage to their homes. Even at intensities VIII and IX, however, relatively few people (about 15%) described their reaction as “panic” and only about 12% reported major damage to their homes. The HEEC phone-survey data show that, in communities of low to moderate shaking, USGS MM intensities estimated from a single postal questionnaire are quite robust. At USGS MM intensity of V and below, 88% of USGS MM intensities determined from postal questionnaires are within one intensity unit of intensities determined from the more numerous HEEC telephone survey data for the same community. We introduce the concept of a community decimal intensity scale (CDI) based on telephone-survey data and calibrated to agree on average with the USGS MM intensities. The CDIs are more regularly distributed than the USGS MM intensities and show much less scatter when plotted as a function of epicentral distance. CDIs show promise as a tool for comparing regional attenuation, for delineating variations in shaking strength within areas mapped as a single MM zone, and for rapid preliminary intensity estimates utilizing electronic media.