Jim Berkland County Geologist for Santa Clara County from 1973 until he retired in 1994. Berkland's predictions have been either self-published in his newsleter or website, or announced in various interviews or speaking engagements. His notoriety arose from an interview published in the Gilroy Dispatch on October 13, 1989, where he predicted that an earthquake with a magnitude between 3.5 and 6.0 would occur in the San Francisco Bay Area between October 14 and October 21. The 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake occurred on October 17, just four days later. Berkland claims that government officials told him not to make any more predictions,
Eastern span replacement of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge major cantilever span. Little was done to address this problem until the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The earthquake measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale and while the epicenter was distant from the bridge, a 50-foot (15 m) section of the upper deck of the eastern truss viaduct portion of the bridge collapsed onto the deck below, indirectly causing one death at the point of collapse. The bridge was closed for a month as construction crews removed and reconstructed the fallen section. It reopened on November 18, 1989, with a new stronger retrofit in place. The failure was at the