Quake shakes Reuters team who are first to confirm damage is minor

When the biggest earthquake for the Los Angeles area in 15 years struck at 11:42 a.m. Tuesday July 29, the 20th-floor newsroom in Downtown LA felt the rumbling, then the rolling and then the big jolt. The first alert from the newsroom “LARGE EARTHQUAKE FELT IN DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES, NO IMMEDIATE SIGN OF DAMAGE” hit the wire within a minute and beat Bloomberg by 16 seconds and Dow Jones Newswires by 2.5 minutes. A second alert from the US Geological Survey reporting a magnitude 5.6 quake near L.A.was out a minute and 36 seconds before Dow Jones. In a team effort, every correspondent rushed to the phones to check damage and within 40 minutes we had told clients that transmission grids and nuclear plants were still working, LA airport was unaffected and that refineries and pipelines were intact. Reassuring customers that something is intact is sometimes as important as telling them when it is damaged.