I was standing in my doorway, gossiping with my landlady. I had been on my way to get cash and then buy food when I ran into her. The building shook, stilled, and then revved up to the serious shaking. My landlady yelled, "Bill!" and bolted for her apartment. I braced myself in the door jam, and it shook, and shook, and shook...
15 seconds takes a while when the ground is moving.
It finally stopped. A painting of M's that I had perched on a molding had fallen off, and the power was out, but that was the extent of the damage in my place. I called Dad; he had a similar damage report. I thought about driving down there, but the garage where I stored my car had closed up and the attendants had gone. The larder was still bare and I still had no cash, so I went to the bank, where it finally sank in that the power was out, and therefore, ATMs wouldn't work. It took a while to find a store that was a) open, and b) willing to take a check. (The store that took my check got my business for the next year or so.)
The power came back on two days later.
Where were you at 5:05 PM Pacific Time on October 17, 1989?
Today's earrings: mice, other mice
Bedtime reading: Making Money, Terry Pratchett
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I came home from the Library - a rare event, because I really never spent that much time in the library during four years of college; I was an art major, natch - to find the TV in the Alpha Phi TV room (the TV that was ALWAYS on, even when no one was there to watch it) was tuned to the breaking news. I spent the next three hours in front of the TV wondering why they couldn't show any footage of Santa Cruz where they kept saying the epicenter was, laughing at the national newscasters mispronouncing place names, and worrying about family who I couldn't reach because all the phone circuits were busy.
ReplyDeleteI had just walked out the front door at Dad's house, and was opening the door to the garage - so I was also wedged into a door jamb. From where I stood, I could watch the twenty-foot tall pine trees in the parking lot whip back and forth like red licorce, and my car in the garage bounce up and down (not much in the way of shocks on old VWs!). When I got back inside, the power was out, but the only thing that broke was a lamp I'd been trying to get rid of.
ReplyDeleteSpent the rest of the afternoon listneing to the radio, and getting teary-eyed at the sight of PG&E trucks. And who knew that elevator operators were emergency workers? Not me, until I heard the call for them to report to work!
--cc
Which lamp?
ReplyDelete