After the Ridgecrest earthquakes, structural engineers went to the scene to see the damages, and to their surprise there was not a lot. Why is that? It is because Ridgecrest is not the populated and it is all relatively new construction. According to Ken O’Dell, president of the Structural Engineers Assn. of Southern California, “You take a 7.1 and put it into the Hollywood fault or Newport-Inglewood fault in Long Beach — we’re going to see substantially different levels of damage.”

For more info, please read the original article by LA Times:
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-earthquake-ridgecrest-worse-20190710-story.html