Monday, May 18, 2009

5.0 Earthquake hits LA County

Dear Lucy,
Sunday evening after getting home from my foray to Long Beach I was sitting in the living room zoning out on the TV when an earthquake started to rumble through the house.

Now it was only a 5.0, and it was centered in LA so it didn't hit here near so hard, but, I was alone, and well...I am terrified of earthquakes.

I grew up in Southern California and experienced many earthquakes and they scared me. But it wasn't' until I moved to San Francisco and the 1989 quake hit that I learned to new terror over them.

It was 7.1 quake that hit at about 5:15 in the evening. My partner at the time and I were both home in our third story apartment, she on the balcony smoking a cigarette and I in the bedroom taking a nap.

When the quake hit it bounced me out of the bed, and my partner nearly off the balcony. She spent nearly the entire 15 seconds of the quake trying to get back into the apartment while being thrown back onto the balcony. I only made it to the bedroom door and had to hang on for dear life just to remain standing. We both figured this was the "big one" that was going to split California off the continent.
When it was over, there was stuff strewn all over the apartment including several bottles of wine that had been torpedoed from the rack on top of the entertainment center to the far side of the living room.

We spent the night agonizing through the many hundred aftershocks, in the dark, drinking the wine that had been shot all over the room, and listening to her Walkman radio for news.

I never want to go through such an ordeal again, and I thought, "what are the chances that there would be an earthquake in Southern California in the few weeks I would be there?" I mean, what are the chances?

Damn good, I guess.

--Kathy

1 comment:

  1. ahhh ... I can hear Barbra Streisand singing 'Memories' ... LOL XD

    ReplyDelete