[ansel12]

You are right, but I was really trying to point out about how earthquakes can affect one neighborhood, while not the other.

Sleeping in my car at Northridge I got caught up in the feel of the area, and was amazed when I drove out of it to buy some groceries, most of the city was unaffected and already forgetting what had happened among their neighbors.

“In the heart of the worst hit areas, you could spend a couple of days and feel that you were in a war zone, with exhaustion and trauma, and stress being the norm, but then you could drive a mile away to buy groceries or gas, and everything, and everybody was completely normal and routine.”

[Windflier]

You are right, but I was really trying to point out about how earthquakes can affect one neighborhood, while not the other.

Yeah, I get that. I saw a lot of that after I came in April of that year. Now, it was four months after the big event, but I saw lots of Northridge locals going about their business as usual. In fact, most were.

At the same time, there were a few people I met who seemed to be genuinely traumatized by what they'd been through. Probably had a lot to do with each individual's experience. Some houses were almost a total loss, while their neighbors sustained little damage. Same with the people. Some were just damaged more than others.

[originalbuckeye]

I had a friend in Camarillo who said her coffee spilled a little out of the cup into the saucer. All I could say was ‘you and I did NOT have the same experience’. My son's grade school teacher lost her house, split down the middle. I never want to go through that experience again. And I am not a wimp. We were lucky we had bought earthquake insurance that, before Northridge, was about $400/year. When we left California a few years ago, our earthquake insurance was $1,300/year with a huge deductible, maybe $50,000-$100,000 (I just cannot remember).