It’s easy to be jaded about earthquakes when you live in California. These days, if you aren’t near the epicenter, chances are you will know about the quake not from feeling it, but from being buzzed on your Blackberry or other device.
That’s how I found out. My vibrating Blackberry rocked my meeting. News bulletin: This just in… Earthquake in LA.
But the immediate reaction from people around me in Northern California? They’re so jaded they don’t pay any attention to any quake that doesn’t ping the Richter at 7.
5.4? 5.5? A nice photo op of shelves strewn on a floor. Maybe some lights out at an intersection. Next.(Hey the Giants beat the Dodgers on Monday. I’m sure that rocked some Angelenos’ world).
The real headline here is that we take for granted that the world comes paved. We forget that for all our concrete refinements,we’re all in this together with nature. When you live on a faultline, every now and then we need a reminder that let’s us know who is and isn’t in control.
There are earthquakes up in the Sierras all the times. When it happens in SF or LA, it’s like an “urban burp,” a minor inconvenience until “THE BIG ONE.”
Until that happens, all Californians know we’re living on borrowed time.
But things were back to normal by evening. Tuesday night, the Dodgers beat the Giants.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-chinohills30-2008jul30,0,323146.story