Info adapted from Association of Bay Area Governments Resilience Program

Earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay Region result from accumulation of energy as the Pacific Plate slides past the North American Plate. The fact that a devastating earthquake occurred in 1906 — the San Francisco earthquake — is common knowledge. Larger earthquakes generally affect larger areas; the 1906 earthquake caused extensive damage in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Santa Rosa. More recently, the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused extensive damage in the Santa Cruz Mountains, as well as in Oakland and San Francisco tens of miles away. But many moderate to great earthquakes (over magnitude 6.0) have affected the Bay Area; 22 such events have occurred in the last 160 years — for an average of one every seven years, and future large earthquakes are a certainty. Learn more.

To see what hazards are near your property, visit http://myhazards.calema.ca.gov/. Enter an address to view earthquake, flood, fire and tsunami hazards in the vicinity. 

Concerned your home might collapse in an earthquake? Retrofit your home and secure its contents.