It was a 5.6 that jolted the area on Wednesday morning, rousing residents of Mendocino County and a good part of the region with an influx of alerts. You didn’t have to be an expert to know it was happening; for many, the first sign was their phone, which is enough to put you on edge and wide awake even if there’s no damage to speak of.
Where the quake hit and when
According to the US Geological Survey, the center of it all was some 11 kilometers (6.9 miles) to the north of Redwood Valley at 8:10 am. Put another way, that’s 50 miles (80 k) from Fort Bragg and 140 (225 k) up from San Francisco.
USGS has it down as 8.1 km in depth, though they put out an early figure of about 5 miles (8 k). A couple of minutes after the main one, a 2.5 came through in the same neighborhood.
How people felt it across the region
You could feel it in places like the fishing town of Fort Bragg, and even in Sacramento and San Francisco. Then again, some in the Bay Area said they were none the wiser, which is typical for a moderate-sized event where the shaking can be spotty.
In Mendocino County, it was enough to make things rattle. Brie Leon of the Club Calpella Restaurant said she had to watch plates and bottles clatter. “It was as if something had hit the building,” she put it. Some frames came down and her staff had to do a little sweeping before they could open for breakfast.
Andrea Medina at Cafe One in Fort Bragg said it was moving but not overwhelming. Over at the pharmacy on the coast, workers told of a rolling kind of motion. “We looked at our phones, then at one another, and that’s when we felt it,” said Angie. “A bit of a scare.”
Alerts, official response, and the tsunami call
The USGS says the ShakeAlert Early Warning System was in play. The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services put the number of MyShake App notifications at close to 657,000. One person online wrote that the alert “scared the life out of me.” Another in San Mateo got a 6.0 warning and didn’t feel a thing. A third had 20 seconds of a heads-up before the ground moved.
Governor Gavin Newsom has been in the loop, his office confirms, and the state is in touch with emergency types to see what the situation is. As for any big trouble or injuries, local authorities say they haven’t seen any.
The National Tsunami Warning Center had a look at it at 8:15 am on June 24, 2026 and made it plain: NO tsunami, NO danger. And they re-issued the old adage: when the shaking comes, drop, cover and hold on.
This is the word from the top right now:
– We don’t see any tsunami risk
– The Governor is up to speed and we are coordinating
– ShakeAlert was in effect
– Nothing to report on the front of damage or injuries
What happens next and what to watch
You can expect aftershocks with a quake of this size, and a 2.5 was indeed clocked a few minutes after the fact. We’re still in the field running some checks and will let you know if the assessment changes.
If your phone lit up before you felt anything, it means the network is working. It won’t tell you a quake is coming, but once it does, you get a split-second to put yourself in a better position.
For those who felt it, put away anything that might have been knocked over and go over your plans. If there is word of any disruptions, you’ll hear from us. In the meantime, we are on it, making sure we are ready in case the earth decides to move some more.
