eek! I wrote 12 years until I thought about it...
January 17, 1994, 4:31 am PST. My world was rocked forevermore - quite literally! A HUGE earthquake began at that exact moment and it was
all my fault!!It was Martin Luther King jr Day and I had to work; at a company that gave us every other high holy day off at our discretion, surprisingly didn't offer us this holiday. So I spent the entire weekend complaining to anyone who would listen about what a horrible thing it was to work on that day... well, I guess I got what I wanted, huh?
I remember that Sunday night... we re-watched the Howard Stern NYE show and had company for dinner (who was that?) and afterwards, Mitch and I walked to the nearby pet store and picked up another couple of fish for our big tank (we had Chuck Wollery - Mitch was a big fan of that insipid dating show he did, and we had Lucy and Ricky -- we bought Fred and Ethel that night, African Ciclids).
My first memory is my body slamming into Mitch's and landing back on the bed; my first thought was "that sumbitch broke my bed!" and as I reached my arm out to slug him for it, we were once again tossed into the air while the transformer blew up, just outside my window. There was a loud glass crash from Dave's room and I heard his cries of "don't come in, don't come in!!" as I sprinted towards the front door. Once my hand touched the doorhandle, I realized I was stark naked and returned to the bedroom for my robe. Mitch caught me there and held me in the doorway for what seemed an eternity as everything around us lurched and crashed. Dave still gave us periodic updates, as he rode out the quake on a waterbed!
In Dave's room, he had
just hung a gaudy, crystal chandelier over his bed. When he fell asleep Sunday night, his head was at the foot of the bed, directly under said light fixture. At 4:30 am, Chi-Chi began scratching at the door so Dave let her out and moved to the top of the bed... nary a minute later, the lamp crashed down and shattered, right where Dave had been sleeping! (this is why the wise Californians keep shoes near their beds!)
During the first, big still point, we all walked out to the street, joining our entire neighborhood. We were all in shock and couldn't talk... then, it happened... we all looked up at the same time and, for the very first time in our lives, the San Fernando Valley sky was covered in stars!! We gave a collective aaaaaaahhh and began checking in with each other (we actually lived in a neighborhood where folks knew one another). Dave took off in his car to get a generator from his parents, a few miles away. He was home in just a few minutes, totally shaken by the devastation he witnessed... buildings with entire sides missing, folks dead from falling building parts... It was such a blur! Patches came back right away, the other two cats stayed gone most of the day (under the house); Chi-Chi dog jumped into Dave's car and wouldn't budge (the car can move, but the house ain't supposed to!); Monty, the baby Python was missing but wouldn't go far without his heat source (it was
winter afterall!). Our fridge had crashed into the stove, directly across from it and dumped the most of it's contents all over the floor, with the exception of a gallon jar of pickled veggies (thank goddess!!). All of our dishes were broken on the floor too, having escaped from the cupboards (where the had only begun to spend time after Mitch moved in the previous November -- had they been dirty in the sink, I think we coulda saved some!). The fish tank took a big jump and tipped just enough for two kamikaze fish to make it into my closet, with lots and lots of stinky fishtank water! The remaining three fish seemed unfazed, I imagine their small brains helped them a lot in this situation :) The top to my hutch was broken, Mitch was immediately gleeful, but I made him fix it! [he gave it to me on our first date and thought he'd never have to look at it again... I still have it!]
Our home became the congregational point, as we would use the generator to alternate between the fridge and the tv. Not that the tv had anything to report but horrible news, but it was nice to see the whole of us dividing our stores and sharing our gifts with one another. The next door neighbor on one side had his grill, the other side had plenty of drinking water, across the street neighbors had lots of beer, other neighbors had their precious cuts of meat threatening to rot and demanding to be shared and enjoyed!
At 6:30 am, Dana called to check on us and we realized we had phone service for the moment... I quickly called my dad (who was asleep after a long night of clearing snow from SF parking lots) and told him there was a big earthquake and that I was fine; he went back to sleep. Mom, however, was at work listening to the news reports and trying to call me and couldn't get through. Hours later, when she got home and shared her frantic worry with dad, he remembered my call and reassured her.
The aftershocks seemed never to stop; Earth Surfing, I called trying to walk down the street. I laughed, only because I knew crying just wouldn't help a ding-dang thing.
Mitch and Dave took off that afternoon, to check on the neighborhood liquor store (and stock up!) and help other neighbors with whatever they needed uprighted or moved.
Our home was safe and stable, thanks to an internal fireplace with it's own footing; the house went up and right back down along the chimney. So unlike our neighbors with gas heat or external fireplaces, we could have a fire that night.
Our friend Lasse, chose to sleep in the park with 10,000 strangers that night, because he was more afraid of our snake than of people in the park.
I remember Bill Clinton came to town
that day (unlike our current resident who seems to be
too good for natural disasters and the people affected) and I was glad, I was glad he came to see for himself how horrible it was to be right there in the middle of this. (later determined we were about 8 blocks from the epicenter of the now named
Northridge Earthquake, 6.7 on the
Richter Scale) The tanks and national guardsmen with their m-16s could have stayed home, I understand why they came, but it was such a shock to see them the first time I left home, three days later... I also witnessed true
compact cars, smashed under the apartment buildings... I kept my eyes closed much of that first ride to work. I had to go back to work, they demanded it! The office was in Beverly Hills and well, tough shit about the valley, get to work. So I did (Thursday?), but I refused to shower -- Mitch and Dave showered in the already-reported super-contaminated water (who keeps the poop next to the drinking water? they do in LA!) and had raging rashes all over
aaaallll over their bodies. I used a bit of the drinking water to do a whore's bath, but I preferred to wallow... if they needed me at work, then fine, I'm going in stinky!! There was an aftershock while I was there, that bowed the picture window next to my desk, I hastily hung up on the customer, crying "earthquake!" and hid under my desk. 10 minutes later, I was calming down the customer and myself... this too had passed.
I heard about the motorcycle cop who lost his freeway as he was cruising along, lost his life, too... the big miracle of the day was the parking lot sweeper guy at the Northridge Mall, who was saved by the cage in his machine... it took
forever to rescue him, but he kept his life. There were folks who needed rescuing from incredibly tall freeway chunks that became cement mesas for a few trucks and cars. Devonshire Boulevard was a giant cavern with water running like crazy and a gas fire raging up the middle...
I was in NYC before week's end, on an already scheduled business trip... Me and Christine, who by the way, was pushed waaaaaaay over the edge by this event. Growing up in SoCal, you learn "the big one's gonna come and we're all gonna die" - she figured it was true! When she lived, she
really didn't know what to do!! So she and her husband, both naked, each grabbed a toddler and rode out the earthquake on their boulevard. No one cared; first because it's LA and no one cares, and second because the other folks were freaking out just the same.
We were SO manic on that trip, both acutely suffering from PTSD... we stayed in a $300/night
Leona Helmsley hotel, just across from Central Park (three of us split the cost)... we did all the crazy touristy things, like
ice skating at Rockefeller Center, a carriage ride thru the park and binge drinking at a
cool club :) I remember choosing my meal carefully, as I would probably barf it up later (drinking + diana = puke)... I drank and drank and danced and danced and ran to puke and drank and danced some more. We crawled into a cab at night's end and the cabbie laughed at us as he drove us just around the corner to our hotel. I crawled into the bathroom to complete the puke cycle and I noticed the phone (how cool is that!?!), I called Mitch, but he hung up on me because I was so drunk! I musta had way more fun at the bar than I remembered, because the next night at about 10pm some guy came to our hotel room for our "sightseeing date" -- and I went!! First we went up the Empire State Building, then we walked aaalllll over Manhattan, even went for a ride on the subway. Where ever you are today, kind sir, I offer you my thanks for being such an incredible gentleman and for keeping me safe -- sorry I don't remember your name.
After the work stuff finished, I was determined to go home and tell Mitch I would transfer my job to the Bronx and work at headquarters... when I got home
everything was packed and he had set a date with my mother for us to move back to SD... and the rest, they say, is history!
