In California’s ‘earthquake country,’ a 7.0 temblor prompts confusion and a tsunami warning

By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ and STEFANIE DAZIO | Associated PressSAN FRANCISCO — Valerie Starkey was driving through Northern California to visit relatives when she suddenly felt shaking and feared her car had broken down, only to realize later that it was an earthquake so powerful that it triggered a tsunami warning for hundreds of miles of the U.S. West Coast.The epicenter of Thursday’s 7.0 magnitude shaker occurred in what’s known as California’s “earthquake country” because it’s where three tectonic plates meet. The temblor was the most powerful to rattle the state since a 7.1-magnitude quake hit Ridgecrest in 2019.Its intensity shocked Starkey and many of the 5.3 million other people along nearly 500 miles (805 kilometers) of the California and Oregon coasts who were under the tsunami warning for about an hour. It was lifted after no major waves arrived.“I thought my axles had fallen apart,” said Starkey, a Del Norte County supervisor representing Crescent City, a town of fewer than 6,000 near the Oregon border. “That’s what I was feeling … ‘My axles are broken now.’ I did not realize it was an earthquake.”The quake struck at 10:44 a.m. west of Ferndale, a small city in coastal Humboldt County,...