Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake and, once again, I am in San Francisco. I did not plan this visit to coincide with the anniversary of that event—a shallow 6.9 temblor that brought down bridges and freeways, tumbled hundreds of homes, and turned large sections of expensive land into quivering jelly—but here I am. With the anniversary top-of-mind here, it hasn’t helped that, since my arrival on Sunday, we’ve had two minor quakes (registering 4.5 and 4.7). Put together, it’s made the locals a bit . . . jumpy.

As a Bay Area boy who moved from one fault zone to another (Seattle), I am no stranger to earthquakes. I’ve been through scores of them, large and small, and long ago acquired the skill that many Bay Area natives have: the ability to gauge the magnitude of an earthquake-in-progress with a fair degree of accuracy. I can usually gauge them within a few decimal points. Back in 2001, during Seattle’s Nisqually quake, I stood on the 14th floor as my building rocked back and forth on its heels like a dignified drunk and estimated it was a 6.5 shaker. I was off by 0.3.

However, I completely missed both of the quakes that struck since my arrival. I’m staying out on the ocean side of The City, and the L streetcar runs past my window every twelve minutes—it’s really much more charming than it sounds—and when the first quake hit (at about 10:30pm) frankly I thought it was the rumble of the streetcar. When the second one hit, I was actually on the streetcar, and there’s no way a four-pointer is going to register when you’re on the move, especially via mass transit.

The confluence of the anniversary and the two shelf-rattlers, though, has gotten everyone here sharing our stories. We all have tales. Like when my cat, lying on my chest, purring, suddenly went wide-eyed and gripped my skin with all available claws for twenty long seconds before the first P-wave set the swag-lamp swinging. Like when I was working in a bank, with a glorious view of the sun-drenched parking lot; the P-wave hit and rattled everything, and then the S-wave came down from the north, advancing through the parking lot, and I saw the sunlight glare off row after row of windshields like an oncoming ocean swell.

We share these stories like war-wise veterans, and in a way, that is what we are. We’re the lucky ones, the ones who suffered little more than broken dishes or cracked picture frames or, at worst, something that required a minor bit of repair work. But there’s a hint of gallows humor to our bravado, because even though we emerged safely, all of us know of someone who didn’t, a friend of a friend who lost a house, was injured by falling debris, had a pet run away in panic never to return, or was otherwise hit by the real and epic power these quakes can unleash.

Earthquakes are like lightning bolts: exciting when they strike near you. They are a brush with the infinite, and they impart the frisson of calamity and danger escaped, but like lightning, you’re either in the right place or the wrong place when they do hit, and luck is either with you or it isn’t. This, too, is part of coping with the imminent threat of living on a fault line.

Anniversaries of past quakes, small shakers that I only hear about via the news, these are welcome, as they remind me of our ephemeral nature, and reinforce the importance of the love of friends and family. After such reminders, I tend to hug a second or two longer than usual, linger a bit before departing, because after all, it’s the people in my life who make all the difference.

Be safe. Be kind.

k