Like Hitting Speed Bumps in a Big Limosine

The 100-year anniversary of the 1906 California earthquake is coming next month. A hundred years doesn't seem like such a long time to me any more since I've lived nearly half that number already. They just keep telling us that there's a "big one" due any time now, not on just one fault but two or more. It's just a matter of time.

I've experienced two large earthquakes and innumerable tiny ones in my time. After the 1989 Loma Prieta quake there were so many aftershocks that I started wondering if I was having swarms of personal temblors too. Many of us were nervous for quite a while. I was in the Oakland Cost Plus store when I was sure I felt an earthquake starting and I just froze for a few seconds then realized I was in an aisle of pottery and glass. As I was about to run and after not breathing for a few seconds I heard a train horn blasting outside and remembered that the store is right next to the train tracks. Every time a train passes by, all the buildings rumble.

When the '89 earthquake hit, I was working for United Airlines at the Oakland airport. I was out on the ramp away from the terminal waiting for a commuter flight from Fresno to arrive. Just as it landed, the ground started moving. First it shook and I knew it was an earthquake. Then the waves came. Not water, but concrete waves. The concrete below my feet moved as if it had changed into a pool cover. It was extreme movement, bordering on violent, and all I could think about was the huge cracks in the earth I'd seen in Anchorage, Alaska after the 1964 earthquake. I was truly afraid the earth would split and I would fall in.

The Alaska earthquake was surreal. We'd had a few before we moved to Fairbanks, Alaska but they weren't anything I was afraid of. Even though it was milder there than in Anchorage, it was still a wild ride. The doors in the hallway were swinging back and forth. The power lines looked like somebody was playing jump-rope with them and the oddest part was that the house across the street looked like it was higher than ours, then lower, then higher. These were the waves pulsing through our neighborhood.

So why don't we have a preparedness kit? Maybe I want to drink water out of the toilet. Maybe I want to get stranded at the Oakland Zoo without a change of clothes in my car.

The other day there was a swarm of earthquakes a few miles from here. I only felt the biggest one at 1:46PM. It's hard to describe an earthquake. Maybe crank up the stereo volume and hold your hand by the bass speaker. If you feel the shock waves from the sound, imagine that force traveling through the ground. Or try this: It's like being a passenger in a long limosine when it drives over a speed bump. At least that's how the little 3.7 quake felt the other day. It's an odd experience because you don't see what's causing the movement but things like pictures on the wall rattle, the bed moves and makes that creaking sound, glasses standing close together make that "ting" sound and at the same time you might think you just heard a truck hit the side of your building.

The brain has only a couple of seconds to think but it presents your conscienceness with a large number of explanations for what's happening. At the same time you wonder where the cats are, how badly you need a haircut, what's in the freezer and how long it'll stay fresh without electricity and then go on to debate whether to stand in the doorway or run outside. I wasn't wearing pants so I decided to stand in the doorway. But I didn't make it to the doorway because my inner voice said "you don't want to get stuck in rubble without pants" so instead I did neither and sat down at the computer instead to look up its size and epicenter.

I can say that we are somewhat prepared, in all fairness. We have a large amount of camping equipment that would come in handy if the house is wrecked and we could still get to it. If the house survives but we have no water, we have a shovel we could use for digging a hole outside to do our business. But something tells me that the homeowners association would still be issuing citations even after the big one.

Even though it feels like no matter what I do to prepare it'll turn out to be the wrong thing, I'm going to start with getting a water supply. In 1964 storing an emergency water supply was much more difficult than it is today. So that's what I'll do to start. And if the earth decides to give us another good shaking to celebrate the anniversary, at least I'll have clean hair and something to cook my oatmeal in.