A devastating 6.4 earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay area on Monday morning at 8:12 a.m. PDT, almost killing six.
"Names of the dead are being withheld pending notifications from families," Public Information Officer Jennifer Vu said, "Those who were injured badly would be lucky if they made it out with everything intact by the time they are done healing."
An auto supply building, McHenry's, on 2342 Plum St. little by little started to collapse during the eruption, killing two unknown people and heavily damaging six bystanders in the process.
“I was eating my breakfast when the room started rolling,” Hayward Resident Mike Beamer said, “I dove under the table just as I heard an explosion outside and a chunk of cement flew through my kitchen window. That’s when the screaming start across the street.”
Beamer, thankfully, taking precaution during the accident, was an obvious witness during the disaster. The firefighters arrived quickly and carefully, using their ropes to maintain the auto supply shop, conducting a heavy inspection of the building, while quickly sealing a dangerous gas leak at the site.
"Twenty-one fire personnel, 12 police and five American Red Cross workers responded to the building collapse, with some arriving within four minutes of the quake," Vu said.
Half those who were injured were wounded badly enough to require hospitalization from the Hayward General Hospital, according to Vu. Other than those major occurrences, nothing too serious took place.
“It was only a normal day, I thought, ’well I have time, might as well go get my car fixed,’ only to realize that that may have been one of the worst decisions I have ever unintentionally made,” Victim May Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez was left with three of her toes punctured and irreplaceable, her upper right arm being caught in between cement will have to have serious surgery to be fixed, and her right leg’s bones snapped, in need of repair.
“It all seemed so harmless before then…” Gonzalez said.
