Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

Recovery efforts continue following yesterday’s 6.4M earthquake causing significant damages to the Eel River Valley community.

CURRENT SITUATION

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) remains activated and is coordinating with local, regional and state partners. 

At least 17 injuries have been reported as a result of the earthquake. As previously reported, two elderly individuals with preexisting conditions have died as a result of medical emergencies occurring during and/or just following the earthquake. Their conditions are believed to have been exacerbated by the stress of the earthquake. 

Approximately 3,400 residents in the Rio Dell community are without water. A Boil Water Advisory has been issued for the city of Rio Dell and the following Fortuna neighborhoods:  Forest Hills Drive, Newell Drive, Valley View Drive, Boyden Lane, Scenic Drive, and Cypress Loop Rd. Residents impacted by these advisories should not drink the water without boiling it first for at least one minute. Boiled or bottled water should be used for drinking and food preparation until Potable water is available at the following locations: Rio Dell Fire Hall, 50 West Center Street, Rio Dell and Rohner Park Pavilion, 9 Park Street, Fortuna.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company is actively working to restore power to those who remain without today.

Damage assessments continue today in impacted areas. At least 30 residences and one commercial structure have been determined structurally unsafe. Total cost of damages has not yet been determined. State Route 211 at Fernbridge remains closed due to damages. CalTrans crews are onsite conducting repairs. There is no estimated time of reopening. Residents are encouraged to utilize an alternative route.

Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal has proclaimed a Local Emergency as a result of the widespread damages sustained throughout Humboldt County. The declaration allows for the county to seek state and federal reimbursement for damage repairs and other associated impacts. The cities of Eureka and Rio Dell have also proclaimed local emergencies for their jurisdictions. Yesterday evening, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for Humboldt County to support the emergency response.

RESOURCES FOR THE COMMUNITY

OVERNIGHT SHELTER:

The American Red Cross-Gold Country Region has established an overnight shelter for community members displaced due to earthquake damages in Humboldt County. The Overnight

Shelter is located at the Rohner Park Firemen’s Pavilion, 9 Park Street, Fortuna, CA. At this site, community members will be able to access temporary indoor overnight shelter accommodations, meals, water, electronics charging and earthquake information. Small animal sheltering is also available at this location. For shelter-specific questions and information, contact 707-506-5083.

DONATIONS

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services is not currently accepting material donations. Please do not drop off donations at the Firemen’s Pavilion. 

To make a financial donation, please contact:

• Pay it Forward Humboldt: 707-616-9191, payitforwardhumboldt@gmail.com

• American Red Cross: 1-800-435-7669, redcross.org

REPORT DAMAGES

Residents are encouraged to report earthquake damages to the Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services at: https://humboldtgov.org/FormCenter/Office-of-Emergency-Services-23/Damage-Report-20221220-Earthquake-216

FOR MORE INFORMATION

For updated information regarding the Humboldt County earthquake response, please go to humboldtsheriff.org/emergency and visit @HumCoOES on Facebook and Twitter, or call 707-268-2500. 

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The power’s back on in Eureka and parts north, and today comes a more sober-headed assessment of what the quake hath wrought.

Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery tells the Outpost that two homes in the city have been red-tagged due to chimney collapse, with another three being inspected today. That seems to be the extent of the residential structural damage.

On the commercial side of the equation, Slattery tells us that a couple of buildings in Old Town were provisionally shuttered yesterday, including the ones that house Humboldt Bay Provisions and the Taste of Bim restaurant — but that reinspection after the power came back on showed them to be just structurally sound. They’re back in action.

The city’s biggest headache by far is the Lloyd Building, that big brick behemoth on Fifth Street between C and D streets. One lane of traffic is still closed on Fifth while engineers and inspectors tally up the exact damage to the building, which is known to be very vulnerable to seismic events. It’s not likely that they’ll find the damage to be none — it’s just a matter of how much they find.

“Once we make a determination, we’ll work with a property owner on the best path forward,” Slattery said.

Again: That owner is Betty Squires, widow of famous Eureka landlord Floyd Squires III. And also again, do go check Ryan Burns’ interesting piece on the history of the Lloyd, if you’ve never done that.

In less than two weeks, job seekers in California will finally know how much a job pays when they apply for it — if companies don’t figure out a way around a new law.

Starting on Jan. 1, employers with at least 15 workers will have to include pay ranges in job postings. Employees will also be able to ask for the pay range for their own position, and larger companies will have to provide more detailed pay data to California’s Civil Rights Department than previously required.

California isn’t the first state to force businesses to put their cards on the table. Colorado took that step in 2019, and a similar requirement went into effect in New York City in November. Washington state has its own version that will also kick in on Jan. 1, and a similar statewide bill in New York awaits the governor’s decision.

The goal of the California law is to reduce gender and racial pay gaps. But New York City’s measure had a bumpy start, with some employers posting unhelpfully wide ranges the first day the law was in place. When Colorado rolled out its law at the beginning of 2021, some companies posted remote jobs that they said could be done from anywhere in the U.S. — except Colorado — dodging the requirement. That wasn’t widespread; about 1% of remote job listings included a Colorado carveout, according to reporting in The Atlantic.

But since California has nearly 7 times as many people as Colorado, according to U.S. Census data, excluding Californians in a remote job listing would come at a higher cost.

“California’s just such a huge economic center,” said Lisa Wallace, co-founder of Assemble, a compensation management platform. “There just aren’t that many industries that are not going to be touched by this.”

What’s the pay range?

Here’s what California job seekers can expect to see more frequently come January: $44 an hour to be a plumber in Berkeley; $18.38-$28.51 an hour for an assistant teacher job in Los Angeles; $74,600 – $141,000 per year for a future compensation analyst in Davis. If companies aren’t adding ranges, people can sue or file a complaint with the Labor Commissioner’s Office, which can issue a penalty of $100 to $10,000 per violation. Companies that don’t have pay ranges in job postings won’t get penalized for their first violation, so long as they add the information.

In addition to preparing to post pay ranges in job listings, companies that don’t already have pay bands for current employees should put them in place, and they should make sure that there aren’t pay disparities based on race, sex, or other protected classes between employees doing substantially similar work , said Jacklin Rad, a lawyer who advises employers on California workplace laws at Jackson Lewis, a law firm.

Businesses are about to have their pay scrutinized by job candidates and employees, said Wallace, the compensation platform company co-founder. “You better make sure that you have a really strong answer for why an employee is paid less,” than the posted range for a similar-looking job, she said. The new California law is uncovering that a lot of organizations have been operating without pay bands, Wallace said. Many of the company’s earliest customers were tech and biotech businesses, Wallace said, but since bill was signed into law she’s seen increased interest from other sectors, including manufacturing and utilities.

One question that arose immediately when New York City’s law went into effect was how wide can a pay range be without violating the law? Some postings included ranges where the high end was about $100,000 more than the low end.

California’s law explains the required payscale as “the salary or hourly wage range that the employer reasonably expects to pay for the position.”

“It’s really ambiguous,” said Rad, the lawyer. “A lot of attorneys that work in this sphere ask themselves: ‘You know, if the range is too wide, then does that defeat the purpose of pay transparency?’”

CalMatters reached out to the Labor Commissioner’s office, which is charged with enforcing the payscale component of the law. The office didn’t make anyone available to be interviewed, and did respond to a detailed list of questions about how the law will be interpreted.

California government agencies include pay scales in job postings, and some of the ranges are large. The Civil Rights Department, for example, recently had a posting for an “Assistant Deputy Director, Workforce Data Officer” with a listed pay range of $7,976 – $19,321 per month, which translates to about $96,000 – $232,000 per year. Another posting, for a Deputy Chief Counsel at the Civil Rights Department had a similar range.

Pay ranges are set by the state’s human resources agency, CalHR, and are influenced by bargaining with unions, said Adam Romero, deputy director of executive programs at California’s Civil Rights Department. Those two positions are “very senior,” and most roles don’t have pay ranges that wide, Romero said.

Reporting pay data

The second major component of the new law is that businesses with 100 or more employees will have to start reporting more detailed data on what they pay workers to the state.It builds on a 2020 law that required companies to submit reports to the state’s Civil Rights Department breaking down how many employees they have in each job category and pay band by sex, race, and ethnicity. The goal was to enable state agencies to more identify wage disparities more efficiently, and to prompt companies to assess their own pay.

The reports are used “in individual investigations of complaints of pay discrimination or other types of complaints of civil rights violations against employers,” said Romero at the Civil Rights Department. The data on its own doesn’t prove there’s been a violation of the law, but it provides context, said Romero. The Civil Rights Department cited the pay data, for example, when it sued Tesla for race discrimination and harassment in February.

The law taking effect Jan. 1 requires employers to add median and mean hourly rate for each demographic group within each job category and include pay data for contractors.

“We are really trying to shine more light on this growing shadow workforce of contract workers,” said Mariko Yoshihara, policy director for the California Employment Lawyers Association, which supported the new law. Google, for example, has more temps and contractors than full-time employees, according to New York Times’ reporting. The new law will reveal how contractors’ pay compares to that of full-time employees, Yoshihara said.

An early version of the new law would have made each company’s pay data public. But after intense pushback from business groups — who said the data is not a reliable measure of pay disparities and that it would “set up employers for public criticism with incomplete, uncontextualized reports and create a false impression of wage discrimination where none may exist” — the bill was amended to keep the reports private.

If companies don’t submit their pay data, the Civil Rights department can take action. It sued Michaels, the craft store chain, and JP Morgan Chase Bank for not submitting the data; both companies settled, paying a combined total of about $23,500 to cover the department’s fees and costs.

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CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

Press release from the Humboldt County Office of Emergencies:

Recovery efforts are underway following a 6.4M earthquake early this morning causing significant damages to the Eel River Valley community.

CURRENT SITUATION

The Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) has been activated in response to this emergency and is coordinating with local, regional and state partners. 

Approximately 11 individuals have been reported as injured. Additionally, two individuals have died as a result of medical emergencies occurring during and/or just following the earthquake. Power remains off for over 70,000 customers in the county. Pacific Gas and Electric Company is actively working to restore power with no estimated time of restoration. 

Damage assessments are currently underway, with significant structural damages, including gas and water lines, observed in the Rio Dell community and moderate damages to properties throughout the Eel River Valley. 

A press conference has been scheduled for 2 p.m today at the Rio Dell City Hall (675 Wildwood Ave, Rio Dell, CA 95562) for credentialed members of the media. A live stream of this conference will be available on the Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services Facebook Page, technology allowing. 

REPORT DAMAGES

Residents are encouraged to report earthquake damages to the Humboldt County Office of Emergency Services at: https://humboldtgov.org/FormCenter/Office-of-Emergency-Services-23/Damage-Report-20221220-Earthquake-216

CURRENT ROAD CONDITIONS

The following roads are closed due to damages:

• Monument Road southwest of Rio Dell
• Tompkins Hill Road at Hookton Road
• Walnut Drive at Greenbriar Lane.
• SR 211 at Fernbridge 

Residents are encouraged to visit http://quickmap.dot.ca.gov/ to check for updated state highway closures. 

RESOURCES FOR THE COMMUNITY

The City of Eureka will have a “charging center” available at the Eureka Municipal Auditorium, 1120 F Street from 10 AM until 5 PM today, December 20, 2022. The auditorium will have power available for residents to charge phones, tablets and necessary medical equipment. Please dress warmly as the Muni is a large building and difficult to heat.

Humboldt County OES is actively coordinating with the American Red Cross to establish a Local Assistance Center for impacted residents in the Eel River Valley. More information regarding this center will be released when available.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

For updated information regarding the Humboldt County earthquake response, please go to humboldtsheriff.org/emergency and visit @HumCoOES on Facebook and Twitter, or call 707-268-2500.

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UPDATE, 10:48 a.m.: Scoping Out the Lloyd

Photo: Ryan Burns.

Traffic is down to one lane on Fifth between C and D in Eureka as Humboldt Bay Fire and city inspectors examine the damage to one of the county’s earthquake-sketchiest buildings — the Lloyd.

The three-story, reinforced brick structure — named, believe it or not, after the actor Lloyd Bridges — is right on the highway. Eureka City Manager Miles Slattery tells the Outpost that they’re only in the inspection phase right now.

The Outpost’s Ryan Burns profiled the Lloyd and its weird, fascinating history back in 2015. It most recently belonged to the late Floyd Squires III, the Eureka slumlord who passed away earlier this year. Presumably it is still part of his estate.

— Hank Sims

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Well, that was quite a ride. Seriously, probably one of the top two or three this reporter has ever experienced in his 50+ years.

The good news is that there seems to be no major structural damage following the early morning 6.4 quake that rocked the county and woke everyone up for a spell. Caltrans currently has Fernbridge shut while they inspect it for damage, but apart from that there don’t seem to be any major concerns.

The city of Eureka asks that you report structural damage to your Eureka building, if you find any such damage at this number: 707-441-4155.

Aftershocks are coming in hot and heavy, none of them particularly exciting. So far. Knock on wood.

Power is out all across the county, and the PG&E outage tracker — never a particularly reliable guide — is currently forecasting it’ll be out until 10 p.m. today. We’ll see.

Schools are closed across the county. Humboldt State is open to essential personnel only.

We’ll be posting updates here. Stay safe, everyone!

Comments to our earlier Facebook post:

Larry Joe Sillaway was born November 4, 1959 in Hoopa. He was found December 5, 2022 in Eureka. Larry went by the nicknames of Larry Jo or Larry Ho. He was a proud member of the Yurok Tribe. His birth parents were Ida Mae Lewis and Everett Charles Myers. As a baby, Larry was born to be Dolores Sullivan’s son, as per the agreement between Ida and Dolores.

Larry was raised by Dolores and had a good life with her. They lived together along with his sister Linda in California, Washington and Florida. As a young boy he took part in swimming and karate. Some would say he always needed to be moving. He had an aptitude for drawing in which he would later take with him into his later life to create spectacular art pieces.

In his adult life, he would take many jobs involving art for commercial businesses, logo contests or specific requests. His works ranged from painting murals on the back of RV’s, drawings for books, carving and painting elkhorn to make hair sticks, to painting the Mazzoti’s Logo at the Old Town location. He would consistently sell his artwork to NCIDC, which family members had dubbed as his second home. In 1982-1983, Larry had contributed illustrations to a book called “Let’s Go Home” as well as an article named “Downriver Indians’ Legends.” In 2009, Larry collaborated with Marc Nicely by designing and painting the tribal design around the mural We Are Still Here located at the San Francisco State University. Larry also partook and won many logo contests for the Yurok Tribe such as the Salmon Festival Logo Contests, YCSS Logo Contest and YLAC Logo Contest.

In 1987, Larry became a father to Lil Larry Sillaway and loved his son very much. In 2014, a tragic accident took his son’s life and Larry never really got over his son’s death. He would honor his son in his artwork or the loving and caring way he spoke of his son to others. He was proud of his son and all who knew him hope he and his son are now with each other in the afterlife.

Larry was an avid sports fan following, most of the professional sports. He will be missed by his sister, as they would always be discussing NBA games or players year after year or watching a game together both yelling at the TV.

Larry had a love for his family and friends which could be seen in his willingness to help someone in need or showing his appreciation by gifting something as simple as buying someone food, a cup of coffee or gift card. While Larry had his dark days he always tried to find his way to recovery. Regardless, if he had made someone angry or upset with him he still seemed to love them and tried to be a better version of himself. He will be missed by those who loved him and cared for him and had always hoped to see a better version of himself each and everyday.

He is preceded in death by his grandparents Melissa & Charles Myers, Rose & Andrew Lewis; his birth parents, Charles Everett Myers & Ida Mae Lewis; his adoptive mom, Dolores Sullivan; his siblings Sharon Myers, Sam Young, Eugene Young, Frankie Erickson, Joseph Henderson, Everett Dewey Myers, Andrea Lavato and Sylvester “Louie” Myers; his aunts and uncles Georgiana & John Troll, Queen James, Arvada Lewis, Andrew Lewis, Jr., Rose Wilder and Marilyn Latham; and his son Larry James Gray Sillaway.

He is survived by his brothers & sisters, Everetta Myers, Gilbert Myers, Richard “Dickie” Myers, Linda Henson and Barbara Rakestraw; and his many nieces and nephews.

Honorary pallbearers are Gilbert Myers, Wesley Latham, Richard “Dickie” Myers, Anthony Lavato, David “Hootie” Lewis, Jamie Lewis, Andrew Myers, Sylvester Myers, Laurance Myers, Nin Myers, Gilly Myers, Troy Myers, Frankie Jo Myers, Richard Myers, Charlie Myers, Dustin Latham, Dewey and Louie Myers.

The graveside service and burial will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, December 19, 2022 at Greenwood Cemetery in Arcata.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Larry Sillaway’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.

Margaret (Meghan) passed away peacefully on December 3, 2022 at Redwood Memorial Hospital in Fortuna. She was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico on April 20, 1942 to her mother, Margaret Edith Williams, and her father, John Walton McMahan.

Meghan McMahan lived and worked as a paralegal in Fortuna for close to 65 years. Meghan was very self-sufficient and lived on her own with her Dog Lakota, (Loki), who was a great companion to her through the end. She enjoyed watching old movies and crocheting blankets for her granddaughters. In her earlier days, she worked as a seamstress and was very talented, making clothes for her six daughters — with a matching dress of her own, of course. She was known to be fiercely independent, which she exhibited until her last days. The family would like to thank Bridie Hansen (Sights) and her children, for assisting Meghan with her shopping, doctor trips and much more.

Meghan was predeceased by her daughters, Heather Olander (Mahood) and Tammy Whitted (Dow). She is survived by four daughters and one son: Paula Galyean (Dow), Shellie Dow, Daniel Goldsmith, Daniele Hoffman (Lambert), and Heidi Gomez (Mahood). Grandchildren include: Joshua Galyean, Daniel Galyean, Phillip Galyean, Brianna Cook (Whitted), Levi Whitted, Caleb Whitted, Colby Whitted, Tara Thomas, Cassidie Thomas, Travis Thomas, Gracie Gomez, Alita Gomez, Kaysha Gonzalez (Mahood), Sierra Olander and Cheyenne Olander. As well as great-grandchildren: Harper Gonzalez, Leticia Gonzalez, Iris Whitted, and Lorelei Whitted.

Meghan did not wish to have a service but will be put to rest near her daughter, Heather Mahood.

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The obituary above was submitted on behalf of Meghan McMahan’s loved ones. The Lost Coast Outpost runs obituaries of Humboldt County residents at no charge. See guidelines here. Email news@lostcoastoutpost.com.