It's only fitting

As the anniversary date of the Loma Prieta earthquake in California, it is only fitting that today be the date on which the Great ShakeOut Earthquake Drills be held. From the ShakeOut website, "Great ShakeOut Earthquake Drills are an annual opportunity for  people in homes, schools, and organizations to practice what to do during earthquakes, and to improve preparedness."

Not only was I one of the millions who survived the Loma Prieta earthquake*; but, I've since participated in at least one of the Great ShakeOut exercises - at the FEMA Region VII Regional Coordination Center. No, I did not make a special trip to Kansas City MO for the exercise. I was there working the response to a tornado in St Louis MO in 2011.

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* In 1989, although domiciled in Albuquerque NM, I had an apartment in Sunnyvale CA, in which I was working on the Rail Garrison program, one of the few classified programs on which I can tell you I worked. The apartment was only a few-minutes' drive from my work site. It was on October 17, 1989, at the end of my work day, when I was stopped at a stoplight (on N Mary at the intersection with the Central Expressway entrance, just short of the apartment complex. My car started rocking. Mistaking the motion for a bad case of engine miss-firing in my 1982 Mazda 626, I immediately cut off the ignition. I then observed that other people, across the intersection from me, were stopping and getting out to look at their tires. Oh, yes. We were having an earthquake - a major one! Upon that realization, I took stock of my situation: there were no major structures to fall on me; but, I thought that I might be above the BART tunnel, which didn't make me comfortable.

Eventually, the rocking and rolling stopped, and I drove the short distance to the apartment complex. As I drove through the main gate, the young women who worked in the office met me, afoot, to ask, "Was that a big one?" Yes, I assured them, it was big. They then told me how the water had slopped out of the swimming pool and toppled the palm trees around it. Going to my apartment, I feared the worst - that my recently acquired computer may have topped off the folding table (an oaken TV tray - I had no TV so wasn't apt to take meals from the tray - lol.) Inside the apartment, I was relieved to find that the only thing misplaced was the roll of paper towels that had toppled from the top of the refrigerator. The computer was just as I had left it - placed catawampus on the folding table to provide greater stability.

Having heard on the radio that there were fatalities on a collapsed bridge across Oakland Bay, I called Hunky Husband to assure him that I was OK (he had flown back home to Kansas, just that morning, from spending the weekend with me; so he escaped having the first-hand experience.) He had gone to bed, early, feeling ill; so, he was in no mood to speak with me. I called our daughters who informed me that there was huge TV coverage on the event.

The next morning, I drove to work, only to find that a street on which I normally approached the facility was blocked off. The bolts (3" diameter, as I recall) that had secured the supports to the facility's water tower had sheared, and the tower was being removed to assure that it did not fall, with attendant possible injuries and at the least blocking the street. Only managers were being allowed into the campus of buildings where I worked. As an employee of a contractor, my management status was not recognized by the security guards. Strangely, the men who reported to me were allowed in. (Can you spell "sexist"?) I returned in a few hours to resume work.

Other than the hundreds of aftershocks (thousands, if counting those sensed only by instrumentation), the affect to my life was over; but, the San Francisco Bay area spent years replacing the collapsed bridge and, of course, life was never the same for the families and friends of those who died. As it turned out, I had been about 1/2-way between the epicenter of the quake and the bridge. There were some 50-65 fatalities and the quake was determined to have been 6.9 on the open-ended Richter Scale (surface-wave magnitude 7.1).

Comments

[Ole Phat Stu]

Been in a couple of quakes, all softer than that.
My first was when I stayed at a hotel on Lake Constance; it shook me awake, not really understanding what was happening.
A silicon valley friend staying in the same hotel, ran outside screaming in his PJs . The locals just laughed :-)

[Hattie]

My sister in Milpitas was in the shower when the earthquake struck. She just held on to the shower door and said "Oh shit, oh shit," until it was over. My mother in Berkeley was very frightened. My sister got to her somehow and brought her back to her house for a few days.
The TV coverage was extensive. What my mother could not get over were the heroic men, just residents around the collapsed Nimitz Freeway, who went up onto the roadway and pulled people out of their cars, bringing them to safety.

[Cop Car]

Stu--Perhaps your silicon valley friend was in the Loma Prieta quake, too! My first quake woke me at 4:00am, in Seattle WA in about 1965. It was about a 4. The worst I've felt in Kansas was about a 3. I lost track of all the quakes in the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas; but, I think my previous "worst" had been a 5.4 in the Bay area just a couple of months prior to the big one. I was in bed at a motel, it having occurred prior to my finding an apartment. Which reminds me of a quake in the Los Angeles area that, too, struck during a night that I was spending in a hotel - near LAX. It took me a while to realize that the hotel guests in the room on the other side of my wall were not really as athletic as I was giving them credit for.

Hattie--I cannot imagine being in the shower for a major quake. Yegads! It took a while and equipment to get some of the people and bodies out of the cars; but, as you say, there were heroic people who helped others extricate themselves and get to safer places before a large aftershock could dislodge the tangle, causing more harm.

[buffy]

I can't imagine living through a big earthquake! I worried for DH's daughter all the time she lived in SoCal. I understand that we have had a couple of quakes from the New Madrid system, but you'd never be able to tell it by me. I probably slept through it.

[Cop Car]

Buffy--It is so dependent upon location. You may be at a null point for the quakes from the New Madrid Seismic Zone.