Governor declares emergency

The aftershocks will probably continue for months.
PASO ROBLES, Calif. (AP) -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger toured the community hardest hit by the state's first deadly earthquake in nine years, declaring a local state of emergency even as aftershocks rattled beneath the central California wine country.
"Obviously it's going to be a rough Christmas for people here in Paso Robles, and the economic impact on the city has yet to be felt," said Paso Robles Mayor Frank Meacham on Tuesday.
Meacham and Dallas Jones, director of the state Office of Emergency Services, showed Schwarzenegger the scene where the quake demolished a historic clock tower building, a landmark in the community of nearly 27,000.
Schwarzenegger pointed to a severely damaged building on one side of a street and an intact building on the other side.
"Here you can see very clearly the difference in a building that hasn't been retrofitted and one that has been retrofitted," said the governor, who stopped to shake hands with firefighters.
"Did you go to bed yet?" he asked them. "A couple of hours? Oh, that's good."
Active fault system
The fault system that unleashed the quake Monday about 20 miles to the northwest of Paso Robles remained active: There had been more than 100 magnitude-3 or higher aftershocks by this morning.
The aftershock sequence was likely to continue for months and perhaps upward of a year, the U.S. Geological Survey said. There was a 90 percent or greater probability that aftershocks of 5.0 magnitude or greater would follow in the next week.
Bad weather prevented helicopters from taking USGS scientists on aerial surveys Tuesday and there was no definitive evidence of a surface rupture of the fault, geologist Davis Schwartz said.
There was no immediate estimate of the total value of quake-related damage. A detailed analysis of damage was being developed, said Office of Emergency Services spokesman Dale Chessey.
Schwarzenegger's declaration of an emergency in San Luis Obispo County directs state resources to be made available to help. It also means inspectors will come to determine whether assistance should be sought from the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the Small Business Administration for low-cost loans for repair and recovery.
Two fatalities
The quake's two fatalities, Jennifer Myrick, 20, of Atascadero, and Marilyn Zafuto, 55, of Paso Robles, were found on the street outside the 1892 clock tower, which pitched into the street and crushed a row of parked cars.
Other damage elsewhere included city hall in Atascadero, about 10 miles south of Paso Robles, and some cracked roads, said Ron Alsop, county emergency services coordinator.
Damage appeared limited to the rural county between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Seismologists believe the quake occurred on the Oceanic fault zone, which runs from north of San Simeon southeast to the Santa Lucia Range on the west side of the giant San Andreas Fault. The region is largely countryside -- vineyards, wineries and ranches -- which limited damage.
"We're in a sense lucky that the area that was ruptured was relatively sparsely inhabited by California standards. Of course the people in Paso Robles and Atascadero are not the beneficiaries of this particular piece of luck," said Jack Boatwright, a USGS geophysicist.
The area has become one of California's most productive wine-producing regions, with more than 80 wineries ringing Paso Robles.
Mopping up
The quake created a mess for dozens of those wineries, with owners left to mop up their tasting rooms and cellars.
Many said it would take them years to recover, particularly because the quake struck when most of this year's vintage was stored in unstable barrels, instead of in mounted fermentation tanks or bottles.