Thursday, June 16, 2005

Earthquakes: Shake, Shake, Shake Your Booty

Yet another earthquake hit California, this one a 5.3 midsized jolter that emanated from about 15 miles east of my pad.

I've lived in California for about seven years and this was the first one I really felt in a long, long time (I actually slept through the decently sized one this past Sunday).

Let me say that earthquakes freak me out a good little bit. However, they rank below tornados on my scare-o-meter. Let’s just say that when I’m between the coasts, I cower at a cloud formation that even looks at me the wrong way.

Everyplace has its geographic up and down side, I suppose. I know of people who are retreating from the idea of ever moving to Florida after the state was ravaged last year by hurricanes. And this is from native New Yorkers, who are contractually obliged to move to the Sunshine State upon retirement.

What scares me is the conventional wisdom that a big earthquake hits California every 10 years or so. Maybe we’ve dodged the bullet this week, though, with the nasty one that hit off the Northern California coast and now the few little ones we’ve had down here in SoCal.

I soothe myself with logic and odds: if SoCal has been around X number of years, the odds of it disappearing into the sea in my lifetime are relatively tiny. This helps chill my nerves in terms of flying, asteroids, getting hit by lightning... all kinds of stuff.

I dig SoCal a whole hell of a lot. The weather is phenomenal, the people and diversity are great, the food and wine is varied and plentiful, and the beaches are the best in the United States.

I just hope I live to tell the tale.

4 comments:

Mat Brewster said...

Having grown up in Oklahoma, better known as "tornado alley" I can say that twister's don't really scare me. We used to go hunting for them when conditions were right. My high school was destroyed by one, but it got me out of school a month early, so it was cool.

But earthquackes would scare the sh-- out of me.

-mat brewster

Staff said...

Tornado hunting? What, no good video arcades in Oklahoma to keep you occupado?

Your high school was destroyed by one? Were you attending at that time? I can't work out if that would have been my dream or nightmare growing up.

And, I must ask: was Buffy Summers in your class?

Anyway, I think it's an individual thing -- everyone seems to have a different take on natural disasters.

Mat Brewster said...

Sorry I'm slow responding. We had plenty of arcades and other things to keep us busy, but tornado warnings were a part of life. My brother and I used to sit on our porch hoping we'd see a tornado go by. Once in awhile, when conditions were right we'd get in the car and go prowling around looking for one.

The tornado hitting my school was my freshman year. It was after hours on a friday, which luckily our football team was at an away game. No one was hurt, but it did major damage to the school.

And sorry, no Buffy attended :)

Staff said...

I'm trying to imagine if having my high school blow'd up by a tornado during my freshman year of high school would have been cause to mourn or to party as though it were 1999... (this would have been about 1988, of course...).