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Shake, Rattle and My Role |
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By Tom Gable
Second- and third-generation San Diegans (all 26 of them) are already rolling their eyes. Because my quake reaction exemplifies East Coast–bred aplomb. The rustling of vertical blinds catapulted me out of bed. Certain an intruder was at work, I rushed into the living room, ready to defend my home with a rolled-up issue of Sports Illustrated (don’t underestimate the power of pointed editorial).
I was unprepared for the carpeted floor to be undulating. For 15 seconds, it felt like waking up on a houseboat. And a swiftly passing aircraft carrier was leaving us in a deep, widening wake.
During this traumatic event, it occurred to me to pull my sleeping daughter from her crib. We stood inside a doorjamb until the rolling subsided. I honestly didn’t know what was happening until my (So Cal–born) wife announced, “It’s an earthquake.” At this point, it was a tossup as to who—my daughter or me—had the more soiled undergarments.
My wife and (So Cal– born) 2-year-old went back to sleep. I remained glued to CNN and network TV coverage for the next four hours. For about an hour immediately afterward, it seemed the only person covering this earthquake besides me was a lonely anchor on KTLA in Los Angeles.
When this friendly but droning man announced an Amtrak train had derailed, I gasped. Soon afterward, he reported an interstate overpass in Ludlow had cracked. I shook my head in concern. I was sure the next update would be a bulletin that the San Diego Wild Animal Park fences had collapsed. And that escaped bands of howler monkeys and western lowland gorillas had taken over Escondido.
When local TV stations finally woke up and start reporting this catastrophe, I began to feel vindicated in my nighttime vigil. Now, I assumed, the world would hear about the cataclysm I’d lived through.
Turns out almost nobody cared. A few kooks called KOGO Radio talk shows. But the temblor barely fazed even the town of Ludlow (population 50). As reported in the San Diego Union-Tribune, T-shirts in a service station there carried the slogan “Welcome to Ludlow—Famous for Absolutely Nothing.” In response to the night of terror, one resident told a reporter, “Guess we’ll have to get new T-shirts.”
On the town’s only residential community—a mobile-home park—being knocked askew, another Ludlow denizen nonchalantly noted, “It was always kind of tilted. Now you can just see it.”
My admission to friends and neighbors that quakes give me the shakes makes them think I’m California bashing. Or East Coast boasting. I’m not. But San Diegans invariably feel obligated to turn this conversation to hurricanes. “More hurricanes hit Florida than earthquakes hit California,” they proudly argue. Brilliant. Don’t worry about the guy in your neighborhood who plays sniper with a bazooka—because twice as many dudes in the Southeast do the same.
Earthquakes obviously create problems. Lawmakers have seen cause to retrofit everything from the Coronado Bridge to the giraffes at the world-famous San Diego Zoo. But I’m forced to realize how unhip it is to notice. It’s cool to save the whales. It’s chic to voice concern about polluted coastlines. But it’s passé to be troubled about tectonic strain involving the nearby Bullion and Lavic Lake fault lines.
’Kay. Whatever. Next time, I’m gonna play it like a bona-fide local. I won’t appear to be startled. I’ll hang 10 on the coffee table. Then I’ll simply mix myself a martini. Shaken, of course.
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