gan, is a bush pilot; widow Ruth-Anne Miller (Peg
Phillips) retired to Cicely and is now the town’s post-
mistress and runs the general store.
Impact Northern Exposurefeatured many scenarios
that were unusual or daring for network television in
the early 1990’s. Two homosexual couples were fea-
tured in several episodes: Ron (Doug Ballard) and
Erick (Don R. McManus), proprietors of a local inn,
were married on the show, a first for prime-time tele-
vision. This was not accepted in many quarters: Two
network affiliates refused to air the episode, and one
sponsor pulled out. Other episodes discuss the town’s
founding by a lesbian couple, Roslyn and Cicely.
Ethnic diversity on a show starring white charac-
ters was also uncommon.Northern Exposurefeatured
two Native Americans—naïve, loveable Ed Chigliak
(Darren E. Burrows) and Marilyn Whirlwind (Elaine
Miles), Fleischman’s receptionist—and Chris’s half
brother, Bernard Stevens (Richard Cummings, Jr.),
was African American. Ruth-Ann was another unique
character for television: a feisty, independent septu-
agenarian who interacted with the townspeople as
an equal, not a frail, doddering senior citizen.
Further Reading
Chunovic, Louis.The “Northern Exposure” Book.New
York: Citadel Press, 1993.
Williams, Betsy. “‘North to the Future’:Northern Ex-
posureand Quality Television.” InTelevision: The
Critical View, edited by Horace Newcomb. 5th ed.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Irene Struthers Rush
See also Cable television; Television.
Northridge earthquake
The Event A 6.7 magnitude earthquake strikes a
densely populated area in Southern California,
resulting in fifty-seven deaths
Date January 17, 1994
Place The San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles
The Northridge earthquake was among the largest quakes
ever to occur directly beneath a major urban area in the
United States. Building design and reinforcement programs
were credited with preventing catastrophic loss of life. Many
structures in the region, including freeway bridges, had been
designed using standards implemented after a 1971 earth-
quake within the San Fernando Valley. However, economic
losses were estimated to have exceeded $20 billion, making
the quake the costliest in U.S. histor y at that time.
Located twenty miles northwest of downtown Los
Angeles, the community of Northridge lies within
the suburban San Fernando Valley. At 4:30a.m.on
the morning of January 17, 1994, an earthquake
with a Richter scale magnitude of 6.7 shook the re-
gion, causing widespread damage, especially to
wood-framed buildings and freeway overpasses. The
National Geophysical Data Center estimated the
quake’s epicenter at ten miles below the ground sur-
face. Although located in the vicinity of the San
Andreas fault, the quake occurred along a previ-
ously unknown blind thrust fault within the Oak
Ridge fault system. Thirty-eight accelerographs posi-
tioned throughout Southern California were used
to measure movement associated with the quake.
For a period of eight seconds, the rupture moved up-
ward and northwest along the fault plane at two
miles per second. At the surface, vertical movements
lifted structures off their foundations while horizon-
tal accelerations shifted walls laterally. With shaking
lasting twenty seconds in some areas, the quake
caused deformation within the Earth’s crust across
an area of more than fifteen hundred square miles.
The quake’s tremendous force caused the Santa
Susana Mountains and much of the San Fernando
Valley to be pushed upward more than a foot. Hun-
dreds of aftershocks continued for months, with the
largest recorded at 4.0 on the Richter scale.
Damage Among buildings suffering total collapse
was a four-level parking facility at California State
University, Northridge. Inside buildings, severe
shaking damaged sprinkler pipes, interior parti-
tions, ceilings, and air-handling systems. Throughout
the region, about one hundred buildings designed
to withstand severe ground motion experienced fail-
ure of their steel frames or reinforced concrete.
In contrast to other seismic events, the legacy of
the Northridge earthquake was not calamitous dam-
age but that more severe destruction and loss of life
had been adverted. Experience with prior earth-
quakes had prompted building codes and the rein-
forcement of existing structures in order to reduce
damage and threats to building occupants. Despite
close proximity to the quake’s epicenter, many
buildings experienced minimal damage. However,
the quake caused severe damage to large wood-622 Northridge earthquake The Nineties in America