Napa quake also shakes some Central Oregonians

The wine-growing region of Napa Valley is less than 500 miles south of Central Oregon, and the 6.1 earthquake that rocked the Northern California community early Sunday also shook some residents on the High Desert who scrambled to make sure their friends and family were okay.

Napa native and Bend resident Christine Medow was born and raised there, and was viewing the destruction in her hometown through Facebook photos, as many did. She learned of the quake in a 5 a.m. phone call from her cousin, at a time when the power was still out, gas mains were down and streets were flooded.

Medow says her family has never experienced an earthquake like this since 1989 — and this time, everything in her family’s home is destroyed.

“They don’t have TVs any more, fish tanks,” she said. “Cars are dented because trees fell, roofs are falling off houses, because it’s that bad.”

Medow said she’s just glad the family and friends she knows of are okay and not seriously hurt. Also, fortunately, her family lives near the hospital in the area and thus had their power restored more quickly than others.

Several Central Oregonians with ties to the area posted comments on the NewsChannel 21 Facebook page, including Jeanette King, who was born and raised in Napa and lived there for most of her first 30 years before moving to Bend four years ago.

As it turns out, she was in the Bay area overnight due to a delay in a flight home and felt the quake dozens of miles away. She said most of her family lives in Napa “and thankfully are okay.”

“All of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and some cousins still live there,” she wrote in an e-mail. “We were connecting (to) a flight from LAX at SFO (Sunday) night when we missed it due to (United) Airline’s delay.”

“They put us up in a hotel in Burlingame and gave us a new flight back to RDM the next morning,” she said. “We had four hours to sleep there before we had to catch our next flight.”

“The quake woke us up — it was shaking so hard, all the way in Burlingame,” about 60 miles south of the quake’s epicenter. They later caught flights home to Redmond.

Chazrick Branson said he just moved to American Canyon, the community closest to the quake, from Bend just a month ago.

“The epicenter was in my neighborhood and there was definitely some damage!” he wrote.

Sarah Lauderdale, who moved to Bend nearly five years ago, said she attended high school in Napa (“go Vintage Crushers!”) and both of her sisters still live there.

They had “no structural damage, luckily!!!” she wrote — but “lots of broken stuff and no power for 12 hours. One sister lives right in downtown, the other lives above Napa in the hills.”

Lauderdale said a good friend’s mother “fractured her shoulder from the quake and spent the day in the hospital. Another friend’s street buckled completely in several places and another (friend’s) parents’ ceiling and chimney are now in their living room floor!!! “