Happy E-Day to all you Bay Areans

10-17-2002 | eggs

[EggsAckley]

Yes, today is the 13th anniversary of the SF bay area's "big one." I've been noticing lately how many Freepers there are right here, so I thought I should acknowledge this anniversary.

I don't know about you guys, but I was hit hard. I live about a mile from the epicenter, and believe me, it felt nuclear here.

At 5:04 this afternoon I will pause to reflect upon that day.

[afraidfortherepublic]

The "Bigger One" was in 1906 (if you take into consideration the devastation from the resulting fire. My family hasn't lived there since -- except for attending school in Bezerkely. When are you getting out?

[Texaggie79]

teehee

[null and void]

Pretty scarey!

[Pahuanui]

I was in Monterey, and in the weight room for at a tennis club that was located on the 2nd floor of a two story building.

With all that extra weight up top, that building swayed like a drunken sailor. I've never seen so many people run so fast to get out of one place. Once outside, the pool was about 1/4 empty with waves still sloshing around. Weird.

[afraidfortherepublic]

My apologies, Egg, for being a smart-alec. I am sorry for your losses -- antiques and all. Of course you should have secured your china cabinet to the floor and secured the door so it wouldn't fly open -- but it's too late for that now.

My aunt in Aptos was on her honeymoon - second marriage. She came home to a house full of broken china and Waterford (hers and her new hubbies life long collections).

The refrigerator door flew open at my cousin's in Santa Cruz and food and beverages and eggs spewed across the kitchen, breaking and spilling everywhere. Clean up was a mess, but the babies in their high chairs were not injured; and that is what was important. It was days before they could get the water and electricity turned back on, so the food was really dried on by the time they could clean. My cousin and my uncle were both home buiders and designers in the Santa Cruz & Aptos area, and none of their homes suffered any structural damage.

I'm sorry for your trauma.

[EggsAckley]

No apologies necessary. And yes, NOW everything IS pretty much secured to the walls. BTW, our water tank, which holds 25,000 gallons, was airborne at least six times, judging by the marks in the pallet beneath it. I still have a fissure under my kitchen.

The trauma is wearing off, and as always, I took that lemon and made lemonade. Learned a lot from the experience.
Thanks.

[TMD]

Yikes, sounds like you used up one of your nine lives.

We spent a very long night watching the news on a little B/W portable TV and listening to the radio in our truck trying to get a handle on the scale of the whole thing. My neighbor's husband was out of town and she spent the night on our sofa. It was a very long, jumpy night. When we were able to check on my parents house, it seemed as though every square inch of floor was covered with broken glass. All their kitchen cupboards had opened up and dumped everything down onto the marble counter tops and into the drawers that had also opened. A house up the street from theirs collapsed into the basement.

Externally we got everything cleaned up pretty quickly, but internally I remember being jumpy for months and months at any sound, shake or bump. It was like reliving it over and over again.

[EggsAckley]

It was like reliving it over and over again.

It's called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I've been plagued with it for years, and it has recently been re-activated. It never really goes away; a chemical change happens in the brain at the time of the trauma. That change never changes back. Unfortunately, Bill O'Reilly and the (L)libertarians here call it a character flaw. It can't possibly exist. To them I say.......Pffffftttt!

[TMD]

You're right. I recall the same feeling after 9/11. Someone called out my name in the hallway at work and I jumped about a mile. Jumpiness is not in my nature and it's disconcerting when it's involuntary.

[null and void]

Bill O'Reilly and the (L)libertarians here call it a character flaw. It can't possibly exist.

Not all of us.

[EggsAckley]

Not all of us.

Well, that's a relief. I've been attacked here by a lot of them, and I just stand my ground until I can't take anymore of their arrogant superiority. My mantra is "walk a mile in my shoes."

[gracie1]

We felt it all the way down here in Fresno. I was pulling into the driveway back from the store when my husband came out and said "Did you feel that! We just had an earthquake!" I said "Did the windows rattle? If not, it wasn't an earthquake." We argued on this a few minutes when my dad called from Illinois to ask if we were all right, he saw the whole thing while watching the world series. I still laugh about, a California girl has to be told by someone 2000 miles away when there's an earthquake!