Aug. 13, 1978. A sunny Sunday afternoon in the Goleta Valley, but somewhere underneath the Santa Barbara Channel, the earth shifted abruptly, causing a magnitude 5.2 earthquake.

The earth shook for one minute, starting at 3:54 p.m. The shaking was felt as far south as Los Angeles, and some Ventura residents reported water sloshing out of their pools.

The initial rupture started on an offshore fault, south of the city of Santa Barbara, at a depth of about 5.5 miles.

The earthquake then ruptured northwestward, focusing its energy toward Goleta, where the most intense ground motion was between Turnpike and Winchester Canyon roads.

It was described as a sharp, jolting earthquake that thankfully didn’t last too long. No deaths occurred, but 65 people were treated for injuries at local hospitals.

All off-duty police officers, sheriff’s deputies and highway patrol troopers were immediately called to duty.

Around Goleta, store goods were thrown to the ground in heaping piles; windows of businesses and residences were shattered; the Santa Barbara Airport terminal was left leaning; dozens of mobile homes were thrown from their supports; and landslides blocked San Marcos Pass with tons of rock and gravel, causing a huge traffic jam.

Damage was heaviest in areas nearest the beach. Some water and gas mains were broken, and a 2-foot fissure opened in the earth near the airport.

About 7,000 people lost electricity for a while. A few fires broke out, but were all out within 30 minutes. In Goleta, 324 mobile homes were damaged; many of them knocked from their pedestals, rupturing gas, water and electrical connections.

Ten UCSB buildings and some dormitories sustained significant structural damage. Damages included diagonal cracking of lower-story walls, most of which were repaired by injecting epoxy into the cracks.

At the UCSB Library, about 400,000 books were thrown to the floor, and elsewhere on campus, damage occurred to light fixtures, ceilings, plaster, and instruments and supplies in some labs.

In the Chemistry Building, chemicals spilled all over laboratory floors, and rumors spread that a glass-walled cage holding several rattlesnakes broke, allowing the snakes to make an escape.

Total damage at UCSB was set at $3.4 million.

Roofs collapsed at Smith’s Food King, the Bluebird Café in Santa Barbara and a residence in Isla Vista, and part of the roof at a car dealership in Goleta caved in.

A photo of employees cleaning up broken bottle and jars at Santa Cruz Market in Old Town Goleta was featured in the Los Angeles Times.

Landslides occurred at Gaviota Pass, but luckily no one was injured.

An emergency ward was hastily set up outside Goleta Valley Hospital, but only about a dozen people were seriously hurt by such things as burns from scalding water, cuts from broken glass, and a car accident.

The most dramatic result of this earthquake didn’t happen until 10 minutes after the shaking ended.

The temblor had created a kink in the tracks adjacent to Haskells Beach. A freight train was moving at about 50 miles per hour through Goleta when the conductor noticed the kink in the tracks.

The train derailed but, fortunately, no one was seriously hurt. It might have been a different matter if the Amtrak train scheduled to arrive later in the afternoon had gone through first.

One diesel engine and 20 cars were derailed, some “stacked up like dominoes,” according to a railroad spokesman.

The engineer saw the buckle and stopped as quickly as he could, but the damage was extensive.

The wheel-truck from one car was hurled all the way to the center divider of the freeway, where it came to rest after brushing the roof of a passing automobile. A close call.

A mass of twisted metal laid in a heap at the Tecolote Cut. A self-propelled crane was brought in from Los Angeles to clear the blockage ASAP.

The track was repaired, and the wrecked cars were moved aside to allow trains to pass through while the cleanup continued.

Overall, Goleta came out OK, and the residents all had cool earthquake stories to share.

Since it’s been nearly 50 years since we’ve had an earthquake that caused any real damage, this would be a good time to review your earthquake preparedness plan. There are plenty of resources to help with that online.

To see a fully illustrated version of this story, visit goletahistory.com.