Santa Cruz Local

After the Loma Prieta earthquake destroyed much of downtown Santa Cruz in 1989, city leaders and residents came together to rebuild the downtown in a deliberate way. A 36-member committee formed a plan for development which continues today. On the quake’s 30th anniversary, Santa Cruz Local talks to some of the key players and explains how Pacific Avenue came to be. Editor's note: The Loma Prieta earthquake was a magnitude of 6.9 on the moment scale, the scale most commonly used to describe large quakes. This episode lists the quake’s magnitude as 7.1, which was its surface-wave magnitude, not a commonly-used metric for large quakes.