Baja Earthquake: Downtown Calexico and El Centro
On Friday afternoon, Jeremy and I explored the downtown areas of Calexico and El Centro. Overall, the majority of the “modern” buildings (built in the 50’s or later??) in these cities appeared to be fine and most areas are still busy and operating even with an occasional boarded window. However, in the older downtown areas, where the majority of the building date to the 1910’s or 1920’s, you could see the damage. Calexico seemed to have more frequent damage than we saw in El Centro. It was apparent that the older buildings have seen many earthquakes. There was old earthquake damage that had been repainted or replastered, damage due to wear and tear or demolition, and new earthquake damage. We really had to check closely to see if cracks were painted or fresh and if there was new debris lying on the ground or not.
Downtown Calexico
An entire nine square block area of downtown Calexico had been closed to the public. There was police monitoring the areas in order to keep people out and even though one official allowed us to enter, we were later asked politely to leave the area by another official. From the edges of the restricted area, we could see that most columns and arches at the store fronts had cracking, maybe half or so of the windows were broken, there were some fallen or leaning parapets, and one partially collapsed roof. We had heard that one store roof did collapse and there was the possibility that more could go. It seemed that for the most part, 5 days after the earthquake, that any other minor damage in Calexico had already been cleaned except for what areas were restricted. Even the Bank of America which could not use their building had figured out how to provide people services by bringing in a mobile ATM. We also met a store owner on the corner of the closed area that had been operating her business all week until they came by and red tagged it that day. Foot traffic to and from the border was very busy and a little extra crowded since everyone had to walk around the edge roped off area. Nearby, we also visited the fire station which housed a strong motion sensor with a peak ground acceleration of 0.272g. The fire station did not have any damage.
Below are a view of 3rd St. in downtown Calexico looking towards the east and a close-up of a partially collapsed roof.
Here is a view of 1st St. in downtown Calexico looking towards the west. The parapets near the Kress sign look like they are barely hanging on.
Officials told locals that they could not use this street and they had to go around the other way. Even though the border crossing is only about two blocks down 1st St from here, it is about 10 blocks to walk around the restricted area to be able to get to the border crossing. 
This Bank of America Building had a fallen veneer near the rear of the building and broken windows at the store front. People had access to a mobile ATM in the Bank of America parking lot in Calexico.
Downtown El Centro
We explored about a 6 square block area of downtown El Centro. It almost seemed like a ghost town compared to the hustle and bustle near the border and there was no police presence here. Like in Calexico, the buildings from the early 1900’s had sustained the most damage. We saw buckled brick walls and some partially collapsed brick walls, crumbling parapets, and some cracked columns at the store fronts. The number of cracks and broken windows was less than what we saw in downtown Calexico. We did see that some of the building in El Centro had been retrofitted with wall anchors which we had not seen in Calexico. We came across a public library that was red-tagged with noted significant structural damage including cracked shear walls and column failure and we could not find a single crack on the entire outside of the building. This made us wonder if the extent of the structural damage in town is more than what is readily visible or if this building was a special case.
This is a building in downtown El Centro that has cracked storefront column and “buckled” brick wall.
Here is a close up of the out of plane failure of the brick wall.
Looking towards the front of the same building as above, there are various layers of finish that have been added, fell off, and then repainted over the years.
Looking towards the rear of the building. The plaster that chipped off to show brick below was obviously new and there was debris on the ground there. The large diagonal crack with wall offset near the upper right corner is accentuated due to the shadows. It almost looks like it could be a preexisting crack because it is so well painted, but it is hard to tell. Maybe it just got worse during this earthquake, but had been partially painted before.
The public library in downtown El Centro had no visible cracks on the outside but was red-tagged for cracked shear walls and column failure inside.
We saw fallen unreinforced masonry at the abandoned mortuary in downtown El Centro. If you look closely, you can see that this building had been retrofitted, possibly twice. Older style bar anchors are still attached to the wood at the collapsed area and square washers can be seen at the first floor line which are look newer than the bar type anchors.
Another interesting building was the Central Pharmacy building, a two story building with a number of different businesses in it. This was also an approximately 100 year old building, but had recently been painted. It had horizontal cracks around the entire perimeter of the building at the upper row of windows and the roof line. Many of the business owners had just showed up to remove their valuables as they had just received notice that their building was changed from yellow-tagged to red-tagged that day and were somewhat distraught. One business owner explained that the tagging was changed due to an aftershock that day, however another person in town had previously explained that he could not believe the building had been yellow-tagged at all and should have been red-tagged all along due to the full length cracking, indicating to us that the damage had already been there prior to that day. Given that the owners felt that a red tag was the signal to finally remove their valuables, it gave us some insight into the public perception, and we wondered if they changed to a red tag just to make sure no one was operating in the building. It was unclear to us if people had been operating their business during the week when it was yellow-tagged.
Below are photos of the Central Pharmacy building in downtown El Centro with a close up of typical cracking seen all around the upper story.
