Loma Prieta remains a quake to remember
Twenty years ago, the earth moved. For those of us who
experienced the Loma Prieta quake, it was a vivid reminder that we
Californians live on shaky ground.
Loma Prieta remains a quake to remember
Twenty years ago, the earth moved. For those of us who experienced the Loma Prieta quake, it was a vivid reminder that we Californians live on shaky ground.
For some of us, it was sheer, awful terror. For others, it was a time of loss. For the vast majority, it was a strange little interruption to civilization that didn’t last long.
I was in the latter group. Living in Aromas, only a mile from the San Andreas Fault, it seemed miraculous that my house was still standing.
Sure, there was a big mess to clean up – things fell out of the refrigerator and the cabinets – but no windows were broken, no structures damaged, nothing caved in or was swallowed by the earth.
I remember Oct. 17, 1989 like it happened last week. It was warm and pleasant, a beautiful day. At the time I was working in Gilroy and was on the road going home, like so many other people, because it was just after 5 p.m.
I was driving my little blue Datsun when suddenly there was a weird vibration underneath the car. I thought I had a flat tire. So did a lot of other people, who had all pulled over to the side of the road and were intently examining their vehicles.
I did the same, didn’t see anything, and got back in the car. I turned on KGO-AM in San Francisco, and suddenly began hearing the news – there had been a massive quake in the Bay Area that collapsed roadways and halted the World Series.
I couldn’t believe it at first. Then I did, and set off for home … wondering if there would still be a home to go to.
Well, there was. Although it was a dismaying jumble inside, the house was fine.
I was a few months pregnant at the time with my first son. I remember thinking how lucky I was, that I knew exactly where my child was and that he/she was perfectly safe.
My then-husband arrived home shortly after, and he was fine too.
We marveled over one oddity: Our 30-gallon aquarium, which had moved about a foot to the right on its stand. Water had sloshed out but the aquarium didn’t tip over. Thank goodness because that really would have been a job to clean up.
We had no power and no water, but everything else was fine. Mitch went off to the store to get water and came back with five gallons of ice cream.
“They were giving it away,” he said, since none of the stores could keep it cold, either.
And so we ate ice cream, and barbecued steaks for dinner, since everything in the freezer was not going to survive too long. It was a warm, summery evening, very warm for that time of year.
Around us, neighbors were also barbecuing, having parties, making the best of the situation.
People slept on their lawns, afraid to trust the inside of their homes while aftershocks were still rocking the area. Some were separated from their loved ones for long hours or days during the confusion following the Big One.
I was lucky. There was little trauma, with the worst inconvenience not being able to shower for four days.
I also became the communications link between my Canadian relatives and my parents. Due to some quirk of the phone lines, my parents in Santa Cruz and I could call each other, and our Canadian relatives could call me, but they couldn’t get through to my parents. So people would call me and I would relay messages as needed.
Strangely, I was less bothered by the Oct. 17 quake than I would be by a series of temblors that rattled through the following April. At the time, I was desperately wanting to go into labor and stop being pregnant for a while.
My theory was that my son Ross took note of those quakes and said, “Uh-uh. Not going out there. Too unstable.”
He did make an appearance eventually. And that was a little earthquake all its own.
