[Verginius Rufus]

The Northridge quake happened early on a Monday morning which happened to be the Martin Luther King holiday. If it had not been a holiday, probably the death toll on the freeways would have been a good deal higher.

There was an earthquake in the San Fernando Valley in 1991 which caused slightly more deaths although it wasn't quite as strong a quake. The next winter I was riding an Amtrak train east from California. There was a very old woman on the train who was moving to Fort Worth because she had been terrified by the quake. She didn't know anyone there but she had gotten married there 60 years earlier and there had been lots of people at the wedding, so she was sure she could find someone she knew.

[Windflier]

I was riding an Amtrak train east from California. There was a very old woman on the train who was moving to Fort Worth because she had been terrified by the quake.

I had a buddy who did that. He'd lived in SoCal for well over a decade and had ridden out dozens of smaller quakes and innumerable tremors, but something about the Northridge quake spooked him so bad that he unhooked from his whole life and ran off to Florida.