“The Big Shake Never Came,” Gilroy Resident After 3.5M Earthquake

A magnitude 3.5 earthquake hit Monday morning about six miles of Gilroy, the US Geological Survey reported, causing a few pictures to tip, but no major damage.

The earthquake was reported at 9:10 a.m.

Gena Gonzales was enjoying a lazy Labor Day and was just still in bed when the quake hit, tipping the family pictures on her wall.

At first, she thought it was the typical construction going on at the subdivision behind her Gilroy home. Then she realized the sounds and the rumblings were different.

"This was big, it was significant," she said in an interview. "I was almost about to go into the doorway and get the boys. But the kids were on the bottom floor and it didn't even phase them."

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Courtesy of Gena Gonzales

Gonzales said that the "several rolls" didn't last very long, and "the big shake never came." Nearby, her mother felt the rolling, too, but her dad, who was exercising on a machine didn't even realize an earthquake had moved through the south of Santa Clara County. A few others said on Facebook that they felt a "quick jolt" in the nearby Morgan Hill area.

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This earthquake, about six miles from Gilroy, was much smaller and less damaging than the 6.0 magnitude quake that hit near Napa on Aug. 24, damaging at least 500 buildings and initially sending 209 people to the hospital. Gilroy sit along the Calaveras Fault and is about 112 miles south of Napa.

Santa Clara County Sheriff's Sgt. Kurtis Stenderup reported no damage as a result of the Monday morning quake.

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