Ray Gaines, a Los Angeles Fire Department helicopter-rescue pilot, rescues a girl who got in a car accident and fell off a cliff in the San Fernando Valley. Meanwhile, Caltech seismologist Dr. Lawrence Hayes and his colleague Dr. Kim Park are at Hoover Dam doing research for a new earthquake predicting model when a nearby and previously unknown fault ruptures. A 7.1 magnitude earthquake is consequently triggered, collapsing the dam; Park is killed shortly after rescuing a child. Hayes discovers that the entire San Andreas Fault is shifting and will soon cause a series of major earthquakes, potentially destroying cities along the fault line.
