Having lived in California for many years, the line "I felt the earth move under my feet" isn't an exaggeration.
It happened again this week on a quiet Monday night as I worked on my computer when suddenly, there was a strong jolt. The computer shook and then it happened again – another strong jolt.
It took a split second as my brain registered the reality of an earthquake. I waited for a moment and then cautiously walked through the house. All was OK, nothing fallen, nothing broken. My dog, who had been sleeping, was awake but didn't get up, nor did she bark. She just looked at me with a sense of "What's going on?"
It turned out it registered 4.5 on the Richter Scale, a pretty big jolt on a fault that runs almost under my town.
Then the next day, another quake hit a bit further south and along the notorious San Andreas fault. This one registered 4.7.
Great! That's California – no matter where you look, there's an earthquake fault.
What caught my attention is the fact that these quakes came almost 30 years to the day that the big World Series quake rocked the San Francisco Bay Area – Oct. 17, 1989. It registered 6.9 and caused horrendous damage and deaths.
The quake hit just as Game 3 between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's was about to begin. Needless to say, it was postponed.
Known as the Loma Prieta Quake. It killed 63 people and left more than 3,700 people injured. Hundreds of businesses were destroyed as were thousands of homes – by the quake itself and the fires it caused.
The quake did shocking and devastating damage to the area freeway system – the two-level Cypress Freeway in Oakland collapsed, crushing dozens of cars and killing 42 of the 63 victims of the quake.
A short distance away, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge was severely damaged as part of the upper deck collapsed onto the lower – again with much vehicle damage but almost miraculously only one fatality.
The shaking, which lasted 15 seconds, felt interminable to the victims, and it changed the way people here regard the dangers of the moving earth beneath our feet. The earth does that, and will again, and there's nothing we can do about it.
I had lived in California for a number of years and had endured – if that's the appropriate word to use – any number of quakes. First, in Los Angeles, there were many, and I recall the terror in 1971 of feeling my house shake and there being nothing I could do to stop it. The next day, I saw parts of Sunset Blvd. covered inches deep in broken glass from the broken windows of the shaken high-rise buildings.
Overall damage was terrible from what is called the San Fernando earthquake – 12 seconds long and registering 6.5.
Another time, I recall having an earthquake roll through the building where we were broadcasting television news. This was in Oakland, and we were in the midst of a newscast when we all heard and then felt a rumbling. It started at one end of the huge studio and rolled right thru the whole area and out the other side. It left the big studio lights swaying but somehow did not interrupt our signal. We kept broadcasting, but all of us in the crew were very careful NOT to look up in case a light shattered, and we might be showered with glass.
We continued with the news and added the story that "we just had an earthquake!"
Talk about on-the-spot coverage!
But my most frightening memories are of the Loma Prieta quake. I was at home on the phone with the radio station in San Francisco when it started. The phone line was cut off, and I just stood there petrified.
The whole house was moving; not knowing what to do, I just stood in the doorway between my kitchen and dining room. As I looked on the kitchen side, I saw the windows literally rippling and the floor rising up and down, also rippling.
I couldn't believe my eyes, and I remember thinking, "Floors can't move like that!" But they did.
Then I looked into the dining room where there was a wall of windows. They too were swaying and rippling, and again, I couldn't believe that could happen. All I could think of was, if they break, I'll be badly injured.
I closed my eyes and prayed. And then it stopped.
By some grace, none of the windows broke or were even cracked.
I had no damage to any of my property except for a tiny crack above one door frame. I was lucky. I had neighbors who had great and expensive damage to their homes and property.
But that damage in our immediate area was nothing compared to what happened in Oakland and San Francisco. It was a massive quake and yet, it was not what scientists have been telling us for years was coming: "The Big One."
By that, they mean it will be as big or bigger than the 1906 quake that devastated San Francisco.
I recall when I interviewed seismologist Dr. Charles Richter of Cal Tech about earthquakes. He's the man for whom the scale of earthquake magnitude is named – the Richter Scale. I asked him about the size of quakes and what we in California can expect. He said we're going to have "The Big One" though he didn't venture a guess as to how big or when.
And so it's been ever since.
The April 18, 1906, quake destroyed San Francisco and killed thousands. It registered a 7.9 in magnitude, and ever since, we've been waiting to beat that record.
Between you and me, I'm in no rush.
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