20 years ago tonight

[frakup]

I was in Evanston, Illinois running back and forth between a frat house and my dorm room alternating between watching San Francisco burn on TV and checking my answering machine to see if anyone managed to call me and tell me my brother was alive and fine. The Loma Prieta earthquake had struck during the World Series game between San Francisco and

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[xebgoc]

The Loma Prieta was the first quake I knew I'd felt. In retrospect I suspect that I had probably felt many smaller ones thinking that they were trains going by on the tracks nearby - I'd been in California for 5 years by that point, it seems improbable that I hadn't felt one before.

I was sitting in my house in Davis and got sort of light headed. I looked up to see a string rainbow drape I had swinging in the window - not fluttering as it would with a breeze, but swinging. So I got up and went to see where the cat was. She was on the chair on the front porch with her paws on the back looking in the window with eyes the size of saucers. Behind her the giant English Walnut tree was rocking back and forth, again not from a breeze, but the whole tree just waving back and forth.

I called my mom in Eugene and said "I think I just felt my first earthquake!" We both turned on the tv to see whether the news said anything. Then they (erroneously) said that the Golden Gate had collapsed (it was the portion of the Bay Bridge) and we both sort of freaked. My brother worked in SOMA (he was an editor at MacWorld) and my friend Penny's (no ex) husband was a roofer and I had visions of him being on a roof somewhere. Then I remembered that the he'd be in a bar somewhere watching the game. (I was right).

We decided she'd call Danny (my brother) and I would call Penny. So we hung up. It was 4 days before we got a phone line to one another.

Danny had crawled under his desk and watched his computer skitter across and fall off onto the floor. Penny was sitting in a chair and got up seconds before a bust of Bach fell off the shelf behind her and went through the wicker seat of the chair.

Not a day I will ever forget even though I was not affected the way most were.

[frakup]

Wow, that's amazing that you had phone trouble all the way out in Davis! It was crazy to be so far away and not have any idea for hours (might even have been the next day, I don't recall) before we heard from my brother.

I've never felt one that big, only 3s and 4s. I hope I never do, but the odds are against that.