In June of 1992, Joshua Tree was still a little shaken up from a magnitude 6.1 earthquake that had just hit the area just a few months earlier on April 22. Thirty-two people were injured and homes, a supermarket, and public school buildings were damaged but luckily no one died.
But in Southern California there’s always talk of the next “big one.” The April earthquake in Joshua Tree wasn’t that, but it was the start of a series of quakes that rattled through the hi-desert and all the way up to Big Bear.
Z107.7 had just been launched just a few years earlier by Cindy and Gary Daigneault, and it’s still owned and operated by the Morongo Basin couple. The station played “soft rock and classics” and had pretty quickly established itself as a community radio station and resource. They didn’t know that the Morongo Basin’s series of faults was about to put that to the test.
The Landers earthquake began with a low rumble on the morning of June 28, 1992, building into a magnitude 7.3 earthquake that shook the Landers and Flamingo Heights area for 32 seconds. Four minutes later, a 6.1 afterhock hit. Z107.7 was on the air when it happened, during Marty “The Night Owl” Martinez’s show. Martinez recalled that it was “like trying to keep your feet on the deck of a ship that was riding out a massive storm.” Z107.7’s Gary and Cindy Daigneault saw the need to prevent panic in the community, so they cleared the day’s programming and went to an all-news format to make it possible for people to report calls for help and to stay in touch with their loved ones over the air.
Gary Daigneault: “When the earthquake hit, Z107.7 was the only communication that had backup generators, so all of a sudden we’re it. The radio station became the hub for relief. We had the off-road club who would station here. People would call here and say, ‘I need diapers for my kids.’ They would get diapers that were being donated and some water and literally drive them to the house in Landers or Flamingo Heights.
“We went wall to wall, 24-7. We weren’t playing any music at all. The phones worked, so people would call us on the air, tell us what’s happening where they were, and then give us their needs. But it took a little while for the relief agencies to get organized.”
“I was working 18 hour days, I was on the air for about four or five days, and then I had to get some rest. By then, more and more people were coming, more resources were available. Things were starting to not be so much of an emergency anymore.”
Unfortunately there aren’t any recordings of Z107.7’s broadcasts back then. However, a VHS tape procured at Landers Thrift is a treasure trove of local coverage that begins in the middle of the Landers earthquake. The still-unidentified cameraman tours the damage on his property, along with neighbors homes and businesses. It’s not just the day of the earthquake, either. The found footage has days of the Landers earthquake aftermath, and it’s a rare glimpse into a natural disaster as-it-happens.
There will be a full screening of the found footage VHS at the Tiny Pony Tavern on Sunday, June 29 at 6:00 p.m. It’s a benefit for the Morongo Basin Historical Museum, and the full video will be available after the event.
Gary Daigneault: “The community reaction to this thing was remarkable, incredible. And the radio station just happened to be in a position where we could help. That (earthquake) really proved how much we take care of each other.”
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