Maine’s director of elections said when she took a tour of San Francisco last week and learned about the area’s last major earthquake in 1989, she didn’t expect to be in town for the next one, which hit early Sunday.
“It’s something on your mind, but you don’t expect it to happen,” said Melissa Packard, of Unity.
Packard said she was in San Francisco for a conference for election directors. From her hotel near the San Francisco financial district, she could feel the quake, but said there was limited damage in her area.
“It was obvious in other places it was a lot worse,” she said.
Around the epicenter about six miles from Napa, the largest earthquake to hit the area since 1989 caused heavy damage to buildings, sent many people to the hospital, started fires and led to massive power outages.
The earthquake woke her up around 3:20 a.m. Packard said she was staying on the 14th floor and could feel the hotel swaying back and forth.
“I didn’t realize for a couple of seconds what was going on,” she said.
Kaitlin Schroeder — 861-9252
Copy the Story LinkSend questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.