Veterans Memorial Park
On February 9, 1971, at 6:00:41 am, the energy of a 6.6 magnitude earthquake centered 5 miles under Agua Dulce traversed an oblique thrust fault to surface in San Fernando and Sylmar at the north end of the San Fernando Valley. While damage and destruction was widespread, the San Fernando VA hospital in Sylmar was hit the hardest. Four buildings, built in 1926, collapsed killing at least 44 people. The site was eventually abandoned and the remaining buildings demolished. A small plaque, placed by the DAR in 1979, commemorates the event at the entrance of Los Angeles County’s Veterans Memorial Community Regional Park. While neither the plaque nor the park are landmarks as defined by our project, for those of us who lived here 50 years ago, the biggest quake to date in Los Angeles was an event we will not forget. (Images of VA Hospital from LA County Library archives)
Sylmar, Los Angeles County
Images by Andrew Schmidt except as noted