Happy Earthquake Day! (728 hits)
Category: Science & EnvironmentalRating: 2 on 24 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by X54 (View user info) at 2009-10-16 21:15:04 EDT
October 17th, 1989. 1704 o'clock. I'm at work on the second floor of a tilt-up not far from the epicenter, in the Engineering lab area with my immediate supervisor. We start shaking a little. I wonder, is this as bad as it will get? Or is it just the P waves, which travel faster than S waves? If it's just the P waves then it'll get worse.
It gets worse. The S waves. I drop to my hands and knees, crawl underneath a sturdy, metal technician's workbench. We used to practice that in grade school. My supervisor, seeing me, cowers under a ridiculously small, temporary shelf attached to a cubicle wall. Ceiling tiles fall and gently bounce off desks and cubicles. Little metal flanges attached to the fire sprinklers clatter down. I wonder if the sprinklers will come on, but they don't.
I listen to the rumbling sound the earthquake makes and watch my supervisor, wondering how anyone could possibly duck for shelter under such a flimsy little shelf. He's from Taiwan. I wonder if they have earthquakes there. I recall they do. It doesn't occur to me to invite him under my bench.
All the humming test equipment in the lab suddenly goes silent. The fluorescent lights go out, but there are lots of windows and it's still plenty light. At last the shaking and rumbling stops. Excited voices fill the silence, everyone talking at once. Someone on the far side of the room takes charge, orders everyone directly outside. Ignoring him, I return to my cubicle, retrieve my backpack, motorcycle helmet and jacket.
Luckily, my Honda Nighthawk 650 is still on its centerstand in the parking lot. I've never been more thankful to be on a motorcycle, lanesplitting through gridlocked traffic. All the signals are out. At last I reach the highway. Traffic is crawling. I wonder what it was like riding during the earthquake.
Recently graduated, I still live with my parents in the Santa Cruz mountains, although I've just closed escrow on a condo in San Jose. It's their house I'm trying to reach after the earthquake. I exit the highway and take back roads, careful to avoid all the giant cracks which have opened up. Several houses are burning, one especially prominent on a distant ridge. Fire trucks and media vans are everywhere.
Not far from home, I see a figure walking the opposite way wearing a motorcycle helmet, carrying grocery bags in both hands. As I draw near I see it's my mother. Cracks in the road made it impassable by car, but not by motorcycle. The earthquake flung me, says my mother. Almost flung me through a window. She's prone to exaggeration. I can't help laughing as I ask why she's wearing the helmet. The redwood trees all cracked like whips during the quake. Many of their tops snapped off and hurtled down like giant spears. I stop laughing and ask where she thinks she's going. To the Red Cross center at the school, several miles away. The house isn't safe. She won't accept a ride, despite having my sister's helmet. Anyway, I can't wait to see the house.
The house is a mess. It's the house I grew up in, cleverly built around giant redwoods and Douglas firs, with narrow parts and wide parts and lots of crazy angles. Multiple levels on a steep hill. Most of it has fallen off the foundation. My bedroom has separated from the rest of the house. The contents of the refrigerator are on the kitchen floor, along with what's left of all the dishes and glasses and everything else from the shelves. An upright piano flat on its back. My stereo components scattered on the floor or hanging by wires. Stuff everywhere on the sloped floors. The swimming pool, an above-ground doughboy, collapsed, burying the neighbor's driveway below us in mud and flooding his garage.
My friend S arrives on his motorcycle. He was home at 1704, having taken the day off because it's his birthday. His birthday. He points out that the Big One happened on his birthday. I ask him how it was. He was sitting on the couch watching TV. All of a sudden, all the books in the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining one wall leapt onto the floor in a big heap. The aquarium atop the TV pitched forward and flooded the living room. Bright little fish flopping on the soaked carpet while the house rocked and rolled. The bookshelves crashed down.
S took cover in the nearest doorway, between the living room and kitchen. The refrigerator had already spit out its contents. The washer and dryer chased each other through the kitchen, shoving aside mounds of broken glass and dishes as they went. The entire detached garage shifted away from the house. The sewer line separated from the septic tank. It's not his house; he's renting a room. It's his birthday.
We ride around gawking at the damage to our neighborhood, enjoying the cheap thrills that come with each little aftershock. It's amazing how sinister even the little ones feel after a big one like that. We climb down inside giant cracks and take pictures of only our heads above ground. We find houses with far more damage than ours. The entire area has been evacuated, so we have the neighborhood to ourselves. Later, we fire up a generator and watch the news reports on television. Massive fires in San Francisco. Collapsed bridges in Oakland. Game three of the World Series: the San Francisco Giants versus the Oakland Athletics. Panicky baseball fans. Yuppies stranded in an Oakland ghetto near the Cyprus Structure. I forget whether the Giants or the A's won the Series that year, but I still remember the earthquake. Like it was yesterday. I know that's a cliché, but it's true.
The phones are all out, but people from outside the evacuation area get word to us by HAM radio. Can you check on our house? We can. Turn off their gas and water for them, but only after a dip in their hot tub. The police catch us the next morning, drinking beer on the main road and talking to a reporter in a van with a big curly antenna on its roof. You have to stay on your own property if you don't evacuate, say the police. Now you're coming with us.
Despite our pleas and promises, they drive us to the highway and leave us stranded at a restaurant near the summit. No, please don't throw us in the briar patch, says Brer Rabbit. We know a shortcut back through the forest. Arriving home, we find a small army of county inspectors armed with stacks of red tags. They're condemning all the damaged houses, which is most of them. The authorities begin letting people back in, but only to collect their belongings. I can see the writing on the wall. I pick my belongings up off the floor and cart them by wheelbarrow to my pickup truck. Like rats aboard a sinking ship, I think, surveying the damage one last time before waving goodbye to my shellshocked parents.
My new condo is unscathed, on solid ground. My parents' house is condemned. They receive the maximum benefit from the earthquake insurance company. At first it seems like it won't even begin to cover the damage. Later, however, they repair the house for a fraction of the insurance settlement and sell it after people forget and the market recovers.
User Reviews
Submitted by TuTs (user info) at 2009-10-20 00:51:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No tsunamis, no hurricanes, no bushfires, no earthquakes where I live one day I would like to have something like that happen, as long as I don't die of course. X54 I like your stuff.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-10-19 23:49:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
jd, the sewers in downtown sf got blasted so fast shit was blowing back up onto the street like the fire hydrants were sheared off. It was crazy. Muni (underground) got partially flooded too, lots of drowned cube rats up on on the street waiting for buses. Very amusing.
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2009-10-19 16:48:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-10-19 16:21:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
One of the local news guys on KCBS was saying on the weekend that he JUST made it past the collapsing part (he was on the top level) when the whole thing came down, and his 'housemate' was on the bottom deck, killed instantly.
****
i didn't say it before, but i was in an unmarked and was getting on the cypress on the 14th st on-ramp (right by the old coca-cola plant) when i noticed a city-resident (my city) hitch-hiking back to town.
i knew he had a couple of low-grade misdemeaner warrents on his ass plus a bunch of ballons of dog-food in his pockets (everyone used to cop from the niggers 2 blocks south of the Cypress in Oak town) but i decided "fuck-it" since i'd see him soon enough in MY town
if i had taken the time to jack him up on that on-ramp
<shudder>
***
whoa!!! fucking rain, big time!
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-10-19 16:25:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Aha...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOAP8p7ux_Y
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-10-19 16:24:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2009-10-19 14:21:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I remember watching the World Series, and Al Michaels talking about the earthquake just as it started, and getting cut off.
--
It's like something from a god-damned movie. He says, "I think we're having an earth--" and that's it.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-10-19 16:21:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2009-10-19 14:21:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
dang...that was 20 years ago already?
I remember watching the World Series, and Al Michaels talking about the earthquake just as it started, and getting cut off.
I also remember the I-880 freeway crushing all those people - that was horrendous.
--
Man, there were a few REALLY grim tales that came out of the freeway collapse, stuff I heard about once and have never heard or read about since.
One of the local news guys on KCBS was saying on the weekend that he JUST made it past the collapsing part (he was on the top level) when the whole thing came down, and his 'housemate' was on the bottom deck, killed instantly.
At least you HOPE it was instantly.
Lots of interestring stuff here...
http://www.kcbs.com/KCBS-Earthquake-Epicenter/1076244
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2009-10-19 15:49:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
The Rise and Fall of Fat Tony: http://local.ubersite.com/m/52747#983145
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2009-10-19 14:45:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This reminded me of "The Rise and Fall of Fat Tony" series, which prompted me to spend the past two hours reading it from beginning to end.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2009-10-19 14:21:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
dang...that was 20 years ago already?
I remember watching the World Series, and Al Michaels talking about the earthquake just as it started, and getting cut off.
I also remember the I-880 freeway crushing all those people - that was horrendous.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2009-10-19 04:52:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2009-10-18 22:19:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
"Lock your wheels and cover your head."
Ha! Earthquakes don't make exceptions for the handicapped.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2009-10-18 18:12:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Glad you didn't jinx us with this!
I took part in the Shake-Out at work last week. Actually, I'm on our emergency team at work so I walked around and tried not to laugh at all the fatasses trying to climb under their desks. Some of them LITERALLY had trouble getting down on the floor and climbing under their desks. Jesus Christ.
BTW, the tip for someone in a wheelchair in an office or at home when a quake hits?
"Lock your wheels and cover your head."
Submitted by SkullBiter (user info) at 2009-10-18 17:35:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2009-10-18 07:38:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
February 23rd, 2005. 0025 o'clock. I'm eating out a chick in a Wendy's bathroom when I start to feel it. The shaking...
I start to worry, if this is as bad as it will get I don't mind, but if it gets worse I think I may have a cream face. She looks like a squirter from this angle.
It gets worse. A passing Wendy's manager hears us and tells us to get out of the bathroom and find somewhere else to lick some labia. I try and explain to him that I purchased food there, and had every right to stay.
"Mffffll... MFffgh mffl mffff!" I said through beaver fur, because I think parts of this story could have used dialogue.
The chick is really starting to go crazy, I don't think she's used to this being from Taiwan, because in that part of Asia they only have sex through four man anal violation. I wonder if they have oral sex there, I believe they do, but who fucking knows.
And before you know it, its over. I get up off my knees and look around, there is no sound except of the drip of vaginal juices off my face and her yelling out strange foreign things.
Foreigners.... I wonder what its like being foreign...
Then I stopped reading.
=======
I hear they're hot blooded.
Submitted by ICO (user info) at 2009-10-18 11:00:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Cool anecdote.
Submitted by HighVoltage900 (user info) at 2009-10-18 07:38:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
February 23rd, 2005. 0025 o'clock. I'm eating out a chick in a Wendy's bathroom when I start to feel it. The shaking...
I start to worry, if this is as bad as it will get I don't mind, but if it gets worse I think I may have a cream face. She looks like a squirter from this angle.
It gets worse. A passing Wendy's manager hears us and tells us to get out of the bathroom and find somewhere else to lick some labia. I try and explain to him that I purchased food there, and had every right to stay.
"Mffffll... MFffgh mffl mffff!" I said through beaver fur, because I think parts of this story could have used dialogue.
The chick is really starting to go crazy, I don't think she's used to this being from Taiwan, because in that part of Asia they only have sex through four man anal violation. I wonder if they have oral sex there, I believe they do, but who fucking knows.
And before you know it, its over. I get up off my knees and look around, there is no sound except of the drip of vaginal juices off my face and her yelling out strange foreign things.
Foreigners.... I wonder what its like being foreign...
Then I stopped reading.
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2009-10-17 19:49:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2009-10-17 15:05:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2009-10-17 11:18:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nature is cool.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2009-10-17 08:18:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow. Here on the east coast we don't really think about such things. We have more to fear from flooding and hurricanes.
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2009-10-17 02:21:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
never been through an earthquake (an appreciable one anyway) and only experienced the forefront of a hurricane as it was 6 hours or so before hitting shore. but i've been smack in the midle of some tornadoes paths a few times. watching a hundreds of years old oak tree, many feet in width, wrench violently and instantly a dozen feet to the side before crashing down is an intense experience.
Submitted by Ducky (user info) at 2009-10-17 00:43:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2009-10-17 00:42:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Excellent post, shit title.
I'd hate/kinda like to experience an earthquake.
I used to think hurricanes were 'kinda cool' and overly half wanted to experience one.
That was before Ike.
They aren't cool. Not even a little bit.
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2009-10-17 00:13:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
No kidding! That would have been very exciting.
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2009-10-16 21:42:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
7 to 10 seconds later, after being on the lower portion of the cypress freeway heading north, it decides to pancake
was rocking and rolling on the powell st. overpass (still heading north) when it hit
(i thought it was a big gust of bay-generated wind)
<whew!>