♪ i like it like that ♪ ♪ i've got soul, i want more ♪ ♪ i like it like that ♪ ♪ you gotta believe me when i tell you ♪ ♪ ♪ que rico, i like it like that ♪ right now. good afternoon. i'm kristen sze. thanks for joining us. our big story today, that 7.0 earthquake that happened off the humboldt county coast north of us happened just before 11 a.m, and it was a 7.0, which is very large. and after that, there was a tsunami warning that stretched from santa cruz. all the way to oregon. that tsunami warning has since been canceled. there have been dozens of

aftershocks, though, following that initial quake. they've happened off the coast of humboldt county. there are reports of feeling the shaking from seattle down to san diego. information is still coming in and we're learning about some damage. we certainly saw things that fell off shelves. et cetera. but no reports of serious injuries. a little more detail now in background. this quake hit at 1044 this morning. it was initially reported as a 6.0, but it was quickly revised by usgs to 7.0 just five minutes later. a tsunami warning issued or was issued, stretching again from oregon down to santa cruz. early projections were the tsunami was due to hit san francisco at 12:10 p.m, so as a result, there were widespread evacuations across the bay area. then, about an hour after the quake at 1154, the tsunami warning was finally canceled. this afternoon, governor newsom

issued a state of emergency declaration for the northern part of the state. he also explained why a tsunami warning was sent out and later lifted it is part of a protocol. >> tsunami warnings anytime you're 5.0 or greater around a coastal region typically goes into effect. that allows us to back off the abundance of caution that was lifted. nonetheless, we're concerned about damage, particularly in the northern part of the state and del norte and mendocino and humboldt county. as a consequence of that, the governor says national guard resources are being sent to the area with early damage assessments already underway. >> now, we know we should prepare for an earthquake, but are you ready? get a kit, make a plan and be informed. if you need help, you can check out abc seven news.com slash. prepare norcal on our website. one city that experienced quake damage is ferndale, just south of eureka, where there are also reports of some damage to buildings and infrastructure. damage is reported at the historic

ferndale in ferndale city clerk says the city manager and police were combing the town for damage and schools across the bay here evacuated following the tsunami warning. sky seven was above oceana high school in daly city, where you see evacuated students assembled on a field. schools in berkeley were also evacuated as well as strawberry point middle school, tam valley at mill valley middle schools as well. now take a look at this. northbound traffic on highway one in pacifica was packed with cars after the evacuation warning. sky seven was overhead. you can see traffic snaked along the pacific coast highway for miles as folks heeded the warning to seek higher ground. while the beaches were mostly clear of people, it didn't stop surfers from going out there and being in the water, which authorities certainly would have said, please don't do that. we saw several surfers still riding the waves at linda mar beach in

pacifica. police officers were in fact asking people to clear the beach until again an hour later, when it was determined that the tsunami was not going to happen. and that's a fortunate thing, because even a small tsunami could cause great destruction. we saw that in 2011 after a quake in japan triggered a tsunami that brought a two foot wave to santa cruz harbor. it caused $100 million in damage. again, the worst seems to be avoided in this case, but we certainly have been tracking this quake and what it's done. meteorologist sandyha patel has more on the numbers here. sandhya. >> yeah, kristen. and you know what? we continue to see aftershocks following that major 7.0 earthquake. the depth was 0.6 miles at 1044. this morning off the humboldt county coast. as you just mentioned. look at the dozens of aftershocks, 65, to be precise. maximum magnitude following the seven was a 5.0. now we also saw this morning some earthquakes right around

the lake county area. so when i query this data here, you will see that there were multiple reports. 4.0 was a maximum magnitude. now with that 7.0 earthquake, the strongest shaking was felt right near the epicenter. as you can see on the shake intensity map. but that earthquake was felt across northern california all the way down towards the monterey bay, and even points southward as we look at a closer view, not as strong, it was weak to light, but it was felt. now let's talk about the san andreas fault, the northern periphery stretches all the way out towards where this earthquake occurred. initially. i do want to explain something. that tsunami warning was issued for the west coast that included california, the bay area. it was initially believed that this was a vertical movement of the plates. now that tends to definitely trigger tsunamis, but in this situation, after they reassessed it, they found out there was horizontal movement of

the plate known as a strike slip. uh. this primarily when plates passed side by side to each other, so it's less likely to create a tsunami. a current wave heights you will see are 5 to 7ft. this is not out of the ordinary. so in case you're wondering, tsunami formation, what happens? the crust gets thrust upward, the water flows outward. the water is displaced, and you will definitely see the water piling up closer to the shoreline. so that's something to keep in mind in the event that we go through another one of these on the earthquake magnitude scale, a seven is a major earthquake. you usually see about 18 per year. but where that earthquake occurred off the humboldt county coast is a seismically active area, so it is not uncommon to see earthquakes like this. just a friendly reminder what to do if you have a tsunami warning. obviously move inland to higher ground about a mile inland. coastal communities definitely need to do that. make a plan,

perhaps to find a point where you want to meet with your family. and the last thing is, look for any warning signs. if you do see the water all of a sudden receding, or all of a sudden starting to build a sudden draining of the ocean water, watch out! definitely get out of the water. obviously that is not the place to be. >> kristen sandia, thank you so much. and the tsunami warning prompted the closure of the great highway in san francisco. and really cash surfers from the water at ocean beach. that's where abc seven news reporter anser hassan is standing by live with reaction and response from emergency crews. answer. >> kristen. good afternoon. what a difference a few hours can make. you see, the waves are still coming in pretty consistent. we spoke to people who live one block from here. they are relieved that that tsunami warning was canceled. you need to disperse and start heading up right now. the san francisco fire department warning was clear get out after a tsunami warning was issued for california's coast.

>> we were actually at a farmers market. and i said, well, let's get home and make sure that we're there. >> at least peter perrelli lives just one block from ocean beach, he says. as time went by and the waves weren't getting bigger, he felt like things might be okay. >> we have our go go bags and everything ready to go and stuff like that, so we're prepared. but i immediately looked at everything i could find and i could tell that, well, it might be 1ft or 2 foot, and this is more than enough of a cliff. and a berm to deal with that. >> thursday morning, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake was reported off the coast of northern california, which prompted the tsunami warning. some surfers were already in the water when the warning was issued. jay laviolette says surfing is part of his daily routine. he didn't ignore the warnings, but he says once in the water, he could sense that the water did not feel different. >> just the way it is here. there's the breakwall like the seawall. i think it would take a seriously huge tsunami for it to

really impact our neighborhood. >> we were expecting the tsunami to hit the coast around 1210 this afternoon. it was right around that same time that we got the alert that that warning had been canceled. since then, it has been a steady stream of people coming out just to enjoy the weather and the waves. reporting live anser hassan abc seven news. >> thank you so much. answer. and all of us. we were all on the air very early this morning just right after the earthquake hit, and we stayed on late to cover the tsunami warning and the impact here in the bay area. so when breaking news happens, you'll find us on tv on abc seven news.com and on the abc seven bay area app wherever you stream, bringing you the information you need. so could we ever accurately predict an earthquake like today's? up next, we'll talk live to famed seismologist doctor lucy jones about how the shakealert warning system worked today and learn about what happened

7.0 and the tsunami warning that followed that affected us. joining us live now is doctor lucy jones, founder and chief scientist at the doctor lucy jones center for science and society. doctor jones, thanks for joining us. >> i'm glad to be here. >> really a pleasure to have you, by the way. i follow you on blue sky. just wanted you to know that. thank you. all right. so how large is this magnitude 7.0. because i've lived in the bay area a long time, i think the biggest i experienced was the 6.9 loma prieta. so historically and scientifically, talk about a 7.0, right? >> it's not that different from loma prieta 6.9. it's relatively close. what's different is this is offshore. whereas of course,

loma prieta was right underneath people up there in the santa cruz mountains. and we forget that. i mean, that magnitude says the total energy released by the earthquake, the energy that gets to you and what you perceive depends very strongly on how far away you are from the source of that energy. and the fact that this was offshore just means that there's, you know, you'll have lots of things thrown off of shelves at the sort of intensity. seven intensity, eight that you'd expect from this at 70km distance. but you're not seeing the upside down grand pianos that we saw in loma prieta, because there's no no pianos out in the middle of the ocean. >> right. i mean, distance aside, does it make a difference whether it's centered in the ocean or under the ground on land? >> no, i mean, under the ocean is land, right? it's the sea floor. right. so the earthquakes in the crust. what's different is just because there's no people nearby, it's all about how far away you are from the source of that energy. same reason that a really deep

earthquake doesn't do as much damage. because everybody is, you know, some distance away just because it has to get all the way to the earth's surface. >> okay. by the way, we're showing some of the damage we're seeing, really in the immediate area near ferndale. eureka around there. so it seems to be in line with the 7.0. but talk about the aftershocks. i think we count how many now 75 and over. is that normal? >> oh, it's a pretty normal. if anything it's a little on the low side for a magnitude seven. i think it's pretty average. i haven't seen anything above five. and on average you'd expect the biggest aftershock to be about five and a half. but we have a big variation within that. i mean, 5% of the time the aftershocks get bigger than the main shock, right? and we the first one becomes a foreshock and you know, 5% of the time, the largest aftershock is several units of magnitude smaller. so this is in that normal range. >> could we still expect something bigger now that we're four hours past the quake? >> it's always possible, right? it's not that you expect it.

the. as i said, it's about 5% of the time and it dies off with time. so that one quarter of the risk is in the first hour. by the time you get to six hours out, half of the risk is gone. by the time you get to 24 hours, most of the risk is gone. so you still see the long tail. but the die off is really rapid. but we're not so far away that it's gone. >> okay, but what's more expected is like a bunch of threes, fours, maybe even a five in the next day or two. >> yeah, and even a six. i mean, a six offshore really isn't going to be doing much of any extra damage. it'll just be too far away. >> okay. for us, there was a tsunami warning for about an hour. why was that feared? and then why did it not materialize? >> why it didn't materialize is i we didn't move enough water. uh. right. so tsunami happens because an earthquake changes the shape of the sea floor. and if the earthquake pushes the ground up and over the other

side, then the water that used to be there has to go somewhere else. and that's the tsunami wave in this earthquake. the ground moves sideways. it was a strike slip earthquake. and that means that we didn't really change the shape of the sea floor much. so once we saw the what's called the focal mechanism, showing us it was the strikes, the earthquake, we recognized that the chances of it having a damaging tsunami is, is very, very low. and even even if it had been a thrust fault, a 7.0 isn't a very big fault. and the big tsunamis happen because you move a huge amount of water. noah's principle is that they warn at seven and a half, and there's a couple of places like this one where they warn at seven. quite why this is considered quite so dangerous. i'm not sure. but once they put out a warning, they will not cancel it until they've been able to confirm that there's no water, you know, no wave showing up on any of their buoys. so you have that hour where people are dealing with the warning and

before they come and say, okay, actually it wasn't it wasn't big enough to do it. but this is one of those ones that was just barely at the margin that they would have called an alert. and clearly they decided to. >> okay, look, and here's where we get to the holy grail part of the question, which is will we ever be able to predict earthquakes? i mean, are there breakthroughs on the horizon that you can see? >> i don't think we will ever predict earthquakes. i think that, for one thing, you don't want me to predict all earthquakes. you want us to predict the very few of them that are going to be large. which means you want us to predict the magnitude of a future earthquake. but the magnitude is determined by how long a piece of fault moves in an event. so you're needing to predict not just when it's starting, but how it's stopping, whether it runs into something on the fault that keeps it short, or whether it keeps on going and ruptures into a big earthquake and right now, as far as we can tell, we don't see any evidence that how they stop is connected to how they start. and if that's true, we'll never have

predictions. >> oh, okay. that's kind of not what i want. >> we have early warning. okay. right. we'll tell you the earthquakes underway and hopefully get the message to you before the shaking does. right. and the consolation prize. think about it. would you rather have two hours to get out of a bad building or a building that doesn't fall down in the first place? and i think we can see that what we really need with earthquakes is how to is. the latter is how to build. right. so that we can have a really big earthquake and go on through. >> before i let you go real quickly, because i've been wondering about this for a while now, which is does climate change affect seismic activity at all? >> no, because the earthquakes are happening deep in the earth and the change in the in the atmosphere changes the rate of storms and floods, but it doesn't change earthquakes. >> okay. well, at least there's that doctor lucy jones. >> is that exactly with the doctor, lucy jones, center for science and society, thank you

so much. >> really appreciate it. >> thank you. hi. >> deliberations are happening right now in the murder trial of cash app founder bob lee. nemo mckinney is accused of stabbing and killing lee back in april of last year, mckinney testified he acted in self defense. his defense attorneys are hoping that video they played of lee allegedly doing drugs off a knife hours prior to his murder will introduce enough doubt in jurors minds about who had the murder weapon to find mckinney not guilty. he faces first degree murder charges, but jurors can potentially consider lesser charges, including second degree murder or voluntary or involuntary manslaughter. >> i've got nothing but the utmost respect for our jurors and our camembert. tough decision ahead of them. and ever so grateful for our our legal team on this and the most of all, our judge. and even more so the san francisco police to be a little cheery about this. >> but and that was christa lee,

bob lee's ex-wife, who was inside the courtroom yesterday during closing statements. growing impact from san francisco's hotel strike. the conference making a move away

as a conference moving out next month. law school conference is moving from the hilton san francisco union square to the moscone center, citing the stalled contract negotiations. abc7 news reporter lena howland gives us a look at the growing impact of the strike. >> sounds like display unit. as workers at six san francisco hotels near three months on the picket lines demanding better wages, improved staffing and more affordable health care. >> almost three months and fall rain. >> the association of american law schools announced they are moving their annual meeting of about 2500 attendees from the hilton and park 55 to the moscone center. in a letter to attendees, the association's

executive director and ceo said, we know that members of our community represent a wide range of views and we will not ask our attendees to cross a picket lin. >> i think it's really admirable for an organization like that to say we're not going to cross picket lines, we're not going to disrespect workers, we're going to keep our business here in the beautiful city of san francisco, but we're going to do it in a way that doesn't you know, prolong this fight where workers are here trying to fight for their families, for medical benefits and things like that. >> that's lizzie tapia, president of unite here local two. the union representing more than 2500 hotel workers on strike. she says more often than not, hotel companies aren't notifying guests of current labor disputes. but she says she hopes this will help light a fire under the feet of hotel leaders at the bargaining table. >> we've moved a lot of business out of the hotels and we're going to continue to do that. there are some really important events coming up in the first quarter of 2025. there are, you know, jp morgan convention is here. the nba all stars here in san francisco. >> meanwhile, workers like

santiago hernandez, a banquet server of 28 years at the hilton, continue their fight on the picket line. >> we want a fair contract. we want well, the corporation to hear that we love our job, but we also need something in return. >> the union says they met with hotel leadership about three weeks ago to negotiate for the first time since being out here on the picket lines. for more than 50 days. they say the hotels failed to guarantee union medical benefits. in san francisco. lena howland, abc seven news. >> cryptocurrency, bitcoin surged to over $100,000 for a single coin yesterday. it was a record high sparked by president elect donald trump announcing a pro crypto pick for the sec chair. paul adkins is trump's current pick for the securities and exchange commission, which regulates cryptocurrency. bitcoin has increased a lot over the year, with most of its

increases happening just post presidential election. we'll

reggie aqui. >> i'm lyanne melendez, i'm luz pena i'm tara campbell i'm j.r stone at abc7 news. >> we deliver local stories with real answers to help make our city better. >> education experts say america has a math problem. a new study shows fourth and eighth graders across the nation are falling behind in math test scores. abc news reporter andrea fujii tells us what could be to blame. >> new evidence this morning that american children are falling behind in math. in some cases way behind. >> the results are sobering.

>> scores from the tests, called trends in international mathematics and science study, found from between 2019 and 2023 american fourth graders dropped 18 points in math. eighth graders dropped 27 points. >> we started this assessment in 1995, so we have essentially we have erased the gains that we were seeing for decades. >> globally, the u.s. scoring only mid-pack, easily surpassed by countries in asia and europe. experts point to many reasons, including covid when education was disrupted in the u.s. for longer than many other countries. >> this decline that we're seeing was, was there in 2015. so all of this cannot be blamed on covid. we have been struggling with this declining scores, particularly in math, for a while. >> experts say too many kids are missing class. about 17% are

described as often absent. >> we need to focus on the students that have been struggling for a while now, and that is where i want to leave it for us as a country to sort of ponder. >> another possible concern boys perform better than girls in both math and science, reopening a gender gap that had previously closed. andrea fujii abc news, new york. >> a new incentive seeks to get more californians out on e-bike. starting december 18th, the state will offer eligible californians up to $2,000 to purchase e-bikes. the california e-bike incentive program will partner with other organizations to provide application assistance. those approved can receive a voucher from retailers and will also receive safety training. the first installment of the program will help pay for 1500 e-bikes. remember, abc seven news is streaming 24 over seven. get the abc seven bay

area app and join us whenever you want. wherever you are. that's going to do it for now. thank you so much for joining us. world news tonight with david muir starts now. and i'll see you back here at 4:00 including with the latest on that humboldt county earthquake in the ocean. nonetheless affected us here with the tsunami warning. and we'll continue to bring you the latest. so i'll see you then at 4:00. tonight, breaking news as we come on the air. the new images in the manhunt at this hour, the ceo murdered in new york city, and tonight, for the first time here, the face of the suspect. and the video just in tonight, the suspect on a bicycle outside new york's central park. also tonight, we're following this magnitude 7.0 earthquake off california. the frightening images coming in at this hour. first tonight, new reporting just in in this urgent manhunt in the suspect wanted for murdering that ceo at dawn in new york city. the suspect seen unmasked and smiling at a