Preliminary city survey: No serious earthquake damage in Wichita

Wichita city inspectors discovered three water main breaks and cracks at some buildings Thursday after two earthquakes rocked south-central Kansas Wednesday night.

Shortly after 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, a 4.4-magnitude earthquake shook northwestern Oklahoma, another quickly followed that measured 4.8 magnitude.

“Due to the intensity, proximity and the fact they occurred closely together, the criteria we use in our earthquake response plan was initiated for a field inspection of our infrastructure,” said Alan King, director of the city of Wichita’s public works and utilities.

The inspections began Thursday morning, King said.

“Preliminary results as of 9 o’clock is that there is no serious damage of any significance but there are some buildings, some problems with slabs in small facilities and we had three water main breaks,” King said during a news conference Thursday.

The city of Wichita has earthquake insurance, King said.

“The process we are using now looks at all infrastructure including bridges, treatment plant facilities, pipelines and building facilities,” King said. “The preliminary indications are that we have not experienced significant damage but there has been some damage,” he said.

The Patrol East police bureau station reported cracks in its slab flooring, King said. There were cracks discovered in one of the city’s pump station buildings.

In addition, some homeowners in west Wichita reported some cracks in basement walls.

“There is nothing that looks like we think would cause a problem with occupation,” King said.

The city does not initiate a damage assessment survey each time there is an earthquake, he said, but this one was done because the earthquakes had similar intensity in magnitude.

This story was originally published January 7, 2016 at 1:25 PM with the headline "Preliminary city survey: No serious earthquake damage in Wichita."