On January 27, 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti. When the quake hit Haiti, I was still reading a feature article in the October, 2009, issue of Los Angeles magazine called, Earthquakes. What’s missing from the online version (someone tell me if they find it) is a sidebar explaining the intensity scale with visuals. I’m going to get this wrong but the difference between a 6.0 and a 7.0 is something like twice the intensity.
Living in California one learns to live with earthquakes. I remember as a young kid, while attending Justice Street School Elementary, having to do drop drills—drop, duck, and cover the head. We also had a loud siren go off at the corner of Woodlake and Justice Street on the last Friday of the month. (I was too young to understand at the time that it was an air raid siren.)
I was ten years old, when on February, 9, 1971, a 6.6 magnitude hit Sylmar at 6:00 a.m. I thought our dog Suzie had jumped up on my bed. My Dad was the only one already up. My mom’s parents, Anne and Albert Holter, lived in Sylmar. I don’t recall exactly what they lost but they were hit hard.
My next big earthquake (magnitude 6.9) was in 1989, while working at The Good Guys, at their corporate headquarters, a mile south of the San Francisco Airport. It occurred on October 17, 1989, at 5:04 p.m. Coworkers were getting ready to watch the third game of the World Series–Oakland A’s vs. SF Giants. I was at my drawing table when it struck. Needless to say, I was the only one in my department to drop, duck, and cover. I remember driving home and for the first time in my life, there was dead air on the car radio.
The Northridge earthquake was on January 17, 1994 at 4:31 a.m. It was a 6.7 magnitude roller and thank goodness we were not up but in bed due to Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Everything seemed to tip over in every room, mirrors and pictures falling off walls, the upstairs TV crashing to the floor, kitchen cabinets downstairs emptying themselves, broken crystal all over the floor. Outside the brick walls in the backyard collapsed on two of the three sides, the third while it stood, was weakened and is now ready to come down with the next big one. The exterior stucco walls, which were being prepped for painting, cracked all over the place.
Earthquakes are reminders that life is precious and we should live each day to the fullest. I’ve lived through a few. I hope to survive the next one. If not, I know each day is a gift.
Photo is of a hand-stamped bracelet I made for myself. If you want me to make you one–drop me a note. Made of sterling silver for $20–your own saying (shipping included).
3 comments:
Hi Laurie,
Just discovered your blog. The Richter scale is logarithmic. That means every time the value increases by 1.0, it is actually ten times more powerful. You go up by 2.0 and it is 100 times more powerful. A 7.0 is, therefore, 1000 times more powerful than a 4.0 earthquake.
I actually felt the '89 quake in Sherman Oaks, CA.
I was getting ready to head home from work, and was talking on the phone to someone who already had the game on the television...
I was on the 17th floor of a high-rise building located at the corner of Ventura and Sepulveda Boulevards and I felt that weird jiggly feeling that earthquakes frequently have, and then the aluminum mini-blinds behind me started gently bumping into the aluminum window frame - tink-tink-tink.
I recall saying "That felt like a small earthquake" and the party on the other end of the phone goes "Oh my gosh, they just had a massive earthquake up in the Bay Area..."
Evidently the shock was strong enough to be felt in a high-rise building over 300 miles away...
The '71 earthquake was VERY scary, because of the early hour...I remember struggling to make it down the hallway behind my Mom, and how difficult it was to walk...and then the LAFD pumper truck being stationed outside our house running full-tilt for almost two weeks 24X7 to keep the water pressure up in the neighborhood...it was eerily serene when they finally shut it down and took it away...
We don't have time or space enough to go through '94 - suffice it to say that I NEVER want to go through anything like THAT again...EVER....
I can't imagine what it would be like to live with the constant risk of earthquakes -- we have nothing like that but tornadoes here in Michigan & usually know by the weather if they're likely.
The only time we visited your old church when we were out to CA to visit, we had an earthquake drill & had to get on the floor between the pews. That was enough earthquake awareness for this Midwest girl!
My heart (and prayers)go out so much to the people of Japan -- to deal with loss and suffering on such a large scale...
Post a Comment