Loma Prieta Periodic Comet Machholz 1 96P/Machholz on May 12, 1986. The first official West Coast Messier marathon was conducted from this site in March 1979. The epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was near the mountain. The mountain was the longtime site for the transmitter tower of San Jose television station KNTV (from 1955 to 2005). It moved its transmitter northwest to San Bruno Mountain in September 2005, after it became the Bay Area's NBC affiliate. Loma Prieta is the tallest peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains and it is common to see snow on the mountain during the winter.
1989 Loma Prieta earthquake large number of damaged buildings that held no victims. The quake claimed one life in Watsonville: a driver who collided with panicked horses after they escaped their collapsed corral. In other Santa Cruz and Monterey county locations such as Boulder Creek and Moss Landing, a number of structures were damaged, with some knocked off of their foundations. Many residents slept outside their homes out of concern for further damage from aftershocks, of which there were 51 with magnitudes greater than 3.0 in the following 24 hours, and 16 more the second day. The earthquake damaged several historic buildings in the