Transportation in the Bay Area was affected by Thursday’s earthquake in Northern California and the ensuing tsunami warning, which resulted in the closure of BART via the Transbay Tube.
Authorities issued a tsunami warning for coastal areas and orders for residents to evacuate to higher ground after the earthquake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 7.0, occurred in the ocean west of the community of Petrolia at 10:44 p.m.
Just before noon, officials from the U.S. National Tsunami Warning Center said that the warning was no longer in effect.
BART announced that service has been suspended in the tunnel that connects Oakland and San Francisco just before 11 a.m. A few minutes later, BART declared that the tube was still closed and that there was a “major delay” in all directions.
Although delays persisted into the afternoon, the agency declared around midday that regular service had resumed.
BART is recuperating from a previous issue. Normal train service has resumed. Please anticipate significant system-wide delays.
The San Francisco Bay Ferry also momentarily halted operations due to the Embarcadero.
“The Oakland Alameda Water Shuttle, a little yellow boat called Woodstock, which runs between Alameda Landing and Jack London Square, was suspended. The San Francisco Bay Ferry spokesperson, Thomas Hall, told CBS News Bay Area, “We did preventively suspend service for about an hour because of the size of that vessel and the size of the docks it ties up at.”
In order to ensure that all safety precautions were taken, Hall said his crew collaborated with the U.S. Coast Guard and its ferry captains on the water.
“Assuming they are already operating when the earthquake occurs, captains perform windshield checks as soon as they get to the terminal. After that, they go over that checklist to make sure it’s safe to dock at the terminal. Fortunately, the earthquake was far away, so the shaking had little effect,” he continued.
“I took the SMART train down and transferred to the ferry,” Kathy Berger told CBS News Bay Area as she traveled from Sebastopol to San Francisco to visit her daughter.
Less than two hours after the earthquake, Berger was aboard a ferry that landed at the Ferry Building at 12:30 p.m.
She expressed gratitude that everything onboard went without a hitch.
“I think they indicated we didn’t have to worry about the ferry running before the alert actually stopped. “I asked one of the guys what his name was, and I told him that I would say his name as we went down,” Berger remarked.
Just a short distance away, Treasure Island Ferry’s Albert Hanna stated that because their route is shorter, they did not halt operations.
“The only thing that we would probably see, given that we’re in a cove in Golden Gate, would be the tide going out and the tide coming in,” Hanna, a Treasure Island Ferry deckhand, told CBS News Bay Area.
He said that the weather allowed services to and from Treasure Island, and that he and his crew ensured the safety of the employees.
“I believe this may be our third tsunami warning while I’ve been working on the ocean. And it has happened over the course of three years. However, they are really uncommon, and we are typically unaffected,” Hanna stated.
Although the warning was alarming, transportation organizations expressed gratitude that there were no significant problems and that things are now back to normal.
Reporting was done by Sooji Nam.
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