By David Fleet
Editor
Bonnie Ramsdell’s cat named “Sarah,” could tell it was coming before it happened.
“There’s really nothing you can do,” she said. “She was nervous,” said Ramsdell. “She knew it. But you really just have no idea when it’s going to hit.”
Sarah and Ramsdell had reason to worry.
Ramsdell, 75, is a 1963 Goodrich High School graduate who has been a resident of Bakersfield, Calif. since the early 1970s.
According to news reports a 6.4 earthquake in the area of Ridgecrest. Calif. the morning of the Fourth of July was followed by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake that hit near the town of Ridgecrest about 125 miles northeast of Los Angeles, during the night of July 5.

Bakersfield is located in southern California about 100 miles west of Ridgecrest and just 60 miles from the San Andreas Fault.
“I was in my house when that quake hit on the Fourth,” said Ramsdell. “My hanging plants were swinging back and forth. I also keep my nick knacks away from the edge of shelves so the don’t fall off.”
Ramsdell, served as an Army medic stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. during the Vietnam War. She moved to California with her husband who was also in the military.
“If you’re in a car you can look up and see the traffic lights swaying,” she said. “The area stores get hit worse everything falls off the shelves on to the aisles. This earthquake was not too bad, you really just bounce along for a while.”
Ramsdell said her area was not damaged although the gas companies and First Responders did come around after it was over to check on us.
Ramsdell recalled the Mt. St. Helen eruption and earthquakes in 1980.
“That was worse,” she said. “In the countryside you could see the earth move like waves.”