Just after 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, February 9, 1971, a magnitude 6.7 earthquake rocked the community of Sylmar, destroying Olive View Hospital and its surrounding complex of buildings. The buildings swayed and buckled, sending debris flying and plunging the hospital into darkness. Three of the four stair towers supported by concrete columns failed. When the columns failed, the towers overturned. After the earthquake the main building leaned as much as two feet in a northerly direction with nearly all of this drift on the first story. The first story nearly collapsed onto itself. It took eleven years and $48 million to rebuild Olive View Hospital (now Olive View Medical Center). Because of the Sylmar earthquake, California now requires hospitals to evaluate the seismic performance of each building or building component, and building codes have been rigorously upgraded. The Olive View X-RAY building, neglected after 1971, underwent patchwork repair and was being used for storage in 1981. black and white photograph. 8 x 10 in.