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Not to change the subject, but I'm posting this here instead of in "Politics and Other Controversies" as this reality is going to affect seniors in a big way in coming years. Maybe the "healthcare" system should be looked at through this lens. Not many seem to want to focus on it though.
February 1971
October 1987
April 1992
June 1992 (2 of them!)
The newspeople like to talk about the San Andreas Fault - people don't realize that the most active fault is the San Jacinto Fault in Southern California, not the San Andreas.
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Originally Posted by Escort Rider
Three out of those four were quite forgettable for me, although yes, I do remember them, but I don't think of them as significant events. (It depends on where one is in Southern California whether the shaking is strong enough to be memorable.)
The one which was not forgettable was the Sylmar quake in February of 1971. So in the 51 years I have lived in Southern Calif. I have experienced two quakes strong enough that I would call them genuinely scary: Sylmar in 1971 and Northridge in 1994. Fortunately I suffered no property damage or personal injury in either one.
April 1992 was a 6.1 at Joshua Tree, and I was camping near rocks.
June 1992 was the worst for me. First a 7.3 in Landers and 3 hours later a 6.5 in Big Bear. I was alone at my cabin - 45 steps up a hillside, no phone, no neighbors. Since they happened early morning, I just pulled the covers over my head and said "Oh hell good-bye."
Those 3 that are forgettable to you would have been devastating if the fault had slipped 50 miles to the west. As it was, there was major property damage in all 3 areas.
Tonight Mostly cloudy, with a low around -8. Wind chill values as low as -19. Northwest wind 8 to 11 mph.
Tuesday Mostly cloudy and cold, with a high near 6. Wind chill values as low as -23. North wind around 7 mph.
Tuesday Night Mostly cloudy, with a low around -11. Wind chill values as low as -29. North wind around 10 mph.
snuggle up y'all!!!!!!!!!!!
The Northridge Earthquake, that is. I was lucky - no significant damage at the apartment I was living in at the time. Power was out for 7 or 8 hours there, but we never lost water pressure. But to say the shaking was frightening is an understatement. A building makes a lot of noise when it's shaking fairly violently. Thirty seconds (about what it was) seems like an eternity.
Sixty people died, which is actually not a large number considering the millions who resided in the affected area. One thing that saved lives was the timing - predawn darkness when most people were still in bed. Another thing was the strict building codes in most California locations. Every time there is a major earthquake they seem to learn something more and pass more laws about building safety. That started with the Long Beach Earthquake in 1933. In the years following the Northridge quake quite a bit of retrofitting of freeway bridges and transition ramps was done. Fire departments have put a lot of thought and planning into how to respond most effectively. Still, we all know that we may well be on our own for a number of hours following a major quake, as the emergency services will be overwhelmed.
I underwent training as a CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) member (volunteer) three or four years ago with my local fire department. It was interesting and well worth while. We actually practiced putting out small fires with extinguishers to learn the proper techniques for their use. About six months ago I put that training to use by putting out a dryer fire in a laundromat; I had it out before the fire department arrived. I felt totally confident using the extinguisher.
For me the unforgettable date is Oct 17, 1989, when the Loma Prieta fault ruptured. I was at work, in a first aide/safety training class and not in my usual work area or I might have been injured or worse. Our facility was, of course, on the water and about half way between the Bay Bridge which has a section collapse and the double decker Cypress freeway which also collapsed. the collalpse of the freeway closed off a main route to and from the port area and for months many of us had to take the long way home.
Despite the fact that Sea-Land Service was a huge multinational corporation the shelving in theparts room in our container maintenance garage was unsecured bricks and boards and was generally 6 to 7 foot high. Well, as you can imagine it all came falling down. We had been asking for years for steel shelving that all ties together and finally management saw the need for it. Hundreds of chassis had broken landing legs and for days the main priority was to get them replaced. The manufacturer shipped all that they had in stock in a rush order.
I recall that there were lots of experts on TV explaining about quakes and talking about the fact that the Hayward fault which runs under Oakland & Berkeley was likely to be the next one in the region to have a major rupture in the next 30 years since it tends to do so every 140 or so years and the last one had been in 1868. It's now been 24 years since they talked about that and it's been 145 years since the last major episode on the Hayward Fault. While it was not the major factor in my deciding to move when I retired it did contribute to my choice not to retire in place.
I too did the CERT type training, Oakland's program was called CORE (Community Organized to Respond to Emergencies) levels one and two but did not get to do the level three program.
Although it it far less likely that I might need their help some day I continue to donate the the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation in Ojio, CA since they will be needed somewhere, sometime.
Yes, Zugor, the Loma Prieta quake was absolutely unforgettable! Of course I only read about it (did not feel it) because I did not live in the Bay Area. But what I read and saw pictures of I will never forget. That collapse of the double decker Cypress Freeway was dramatic in the extreme: rescuers working in three or four feet of space to check if anyone was alive in the crushed cars all the while risking their own lives if the upper deck should collapse any further. They took a chain saw and cut a dead mother in two in order to free her trapped child who was alive. Incredible!
It's no wonder that retrofitting bridges and overpasses became a priority at some point in California with billions spent. Not only will it save lives directly, but the preservation of vital transportation corridors will help emergency response.
My earthquake story is from earlier - Whittier Narrows. I lived in Pomona (next town over). When the earthquake hit, I had a moment of panicked OH! SH*T! and then immediately that passed, and I thought, oh well - either I'll survive or I won't. Then I enjoyed the "ride".
What got to me, though, was the large aftershock during the next week. I was still in bed and was just barely awake, and had a momentary image of the house collapsing down onto me. After that, I was over-excited (not in a good way) by any earthquake.
What got me over that was doing engineering inspections in Northridge following that quake. Of all the houses we inspected, there was only one where we advised the family that it was not safe to be inside the house (it had major fracturing all around). We were actually standing on the sidewalk in Northridge when the 5.1 aftershock hit. I was glad my SO (of the time) was out of the crawlspace he'd been in five minutes earlier! And there was one other house that I was sure would have been shaken loose by that aftershock - it was cantilevered over a crawl space, and had major fracturing from the first quake. But it was not any further damaged by the 5.1 aftershock.
People complain about the strict building codes in California, but they do save lives!
I was in the journalism school at U-Mo when there was a major earthquake was predicted on the New Madrid fault in the Missouri bootheel. I turned down a voluntary assignment to go down there and report on it. I figured my kids needed me more. It never happened and a lot of journalists wasted a lot of time. Brought a lot of attention to that area and I decided then and there no earthquake faultlines for me. I'm sure there's a few in the Northeast that I don't want to know about.
Yep, have had three here in the last 21 years. None lasted more than two mintes. The last one I was sitting down and made me nauseous, then I jumped up and said 'Earthquake!' Later on the news I was right.
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