Quake rocks California
E-mail story
It's easy. Send a link to the story you were just reading to a friend. Just fill out the form on this page and we'll send it along.
Your name and e-mail address are transmitted to the recipient. Otherwise, it is considered private information; see Privacy policy.
PASO ROBLES, Calif. — A member of the Church was one of two people killed in an earthquake that hit the central California coast on Monday, Dec. 22.
Marilyn Southam Zafuto, 55, of the Paso Robles 2nd Ward, a retired school teacher from Vernal, Utah, died when the building where she worked collapsed in the quake, according to San Luis Obispo California Stake President Stephen R. Nelson. He said other Church members also work in the same dress shop but weren't there at the time of the catastrophe.
The earthquake, magnitude 6.5, was centered near the coastal town of Cambria, 165 miles southeast of San Francisco, and was felt from the Bay area to Los Angeles. It was the first temblor in California with fatalities since the magnitude-6.7 Northridge quake in 1994. Both of the Paso Robles deaths were from the collapse of the same building.
President Nelson said many of the downtown buildings in Paso Robles are around a century old and are not reinforced. There was only minor damage in other areas of the stake, including meetinghouses in Paso Robles and Morro Bay, he said. One member family, he noted, had their apartment flooded in a complex in Atascadero, but their landlord let them move into another vacant apartment.
"I've lived here 28 years and its the first earthquake I've ever felt," President Nelson said. "I was on the back deck and it was waving around, the house was moving and creaking."
He added that two of his children were hiking nearby and had to get down on all fours to steady themselves. "They thought they were dizzy, then they realized it was an earthquake," he said.
Making contact with California Ventura Mission President David J. Henderson, President Nelson found that all missionaries in the area were accounted for and safe. In fact, the mission president told him that missionaries had been taught during recent zone conferences what to do if an earthquake struck.
President Nelson concluded that if it weren't for the fatalities and the devastation in downtown Paso Robles, the quake would have been little more than a nuisance in the stake area.
