Raymond 'Ray' Gaines is a Los Angeles Fire Department Air Rescue pilot, who at the beginning of the film saves a girl, Natalie, after her car is stuck on the side of the San Andreas Fault. A seemingly ideal day turns disastrous when California';;;;;;s notorious San Andreas fault triggers a devastating, magnitude 9 earthquake, the largest in recorded history. As the Earth cracks open and buildings start to crumble, Ray Gaines must navigate the destruction from Los Angeles to San Francisco to bring his estranged wife and their only daughter to safety.