Hurricanes vs. Earthquakes

As far as natural disasters go, I’ll take hurricanes over earthquakes any day of the week. I am not making light of the destructive strength of any natural disaster; I am just saying that with hurricanes, there are weeks of warnings accompanied by dire theme songs from our local news teams. Fortunately, most Mo’towners can rest safely at night, knowing that we are light years away from those suspiciously shifting tectonic plates.

Hurricanes are our very own natural disaster. We who grew up along the East Coast are familiar with the precautions and procedures associated with hurricanes. My first brush with hurricanes was in 1960, when Hurricane Donna “roared” through Westmont. We were all sent home from school amidst the wild winds that lifted our little skirts and blew baseball caps off little boys' heads. As far as hurricanes go, Donna was the ninth most costly hurricane, causing $26.8 million of damage (2005 USD), but all I can remember is that Mrs. Tobey’s clothesline blew away.

Since the onslaught of thousands of satellites orbiting the Earth, we now have access to every conceivable bit of information: detailed photos of our homes, what car we drive and how often we shave our legs. We can even view the birth of a tropical depression and follow it from its infancy to the moment it morphs into the dreaded hurricane. In other words, we have plenty of time to stockpile batteries, water, powdered milk and Slim-Jims. As it usually turns out, though, our preparations are for naught. The hurricane gratefully passes us by and we go about our lives, swapping lost electricity stories and downed tree tales.

There is absolutely no way one can prepare for an earthquake, except by avoiding California altogether. If you are foolish enough to live on or near a fault line you can assume that you will someday feel the earth move, though not in the celestial, heart-stopping way Carole King wrote about.

We settled in Southern California shortly after Taylor won Star Search in 1991. Since I fear that my readership does not include teenagers, I will assume that my audience remembers the Ed McMahon-hosted talent contest, a forerunner of  American Idol. We sold our house and packed up our 14-month old son and moved to Thousand Oaks which is located right next to Simi Valley, scene of the infamous trial of several Caucasian policemen accused of beating Rodney King senseless. The officers were acquitted and we were introduced to raging riots. Welcome to California!

Shortly thereafter, though totally unrelated, fires broke out in the Santa Monica Mountains and turned into vicious firestorms that we could see from our front door and smell in the gray air we breathed every day. Once the fires were brought under control, we all assumed the worst was over. Our neighbors told us that Southern California had been in drought conditions for seven years. Their oldest child had no recollection of rain! That was remedied when torrential rains came, and for days on end, I was trapped indoors building LEGOS with my toddler while tending to a newborn and watching massive amounts of Barney and Rugrats in a family room the size of a large boot.

As the rain subsided, the fire-charred landscape, with no trees to hold the soil, melted in mudslides that closed the Pacific Coast Highway and decimated both million dollar homes and trailers alike. Thank goodness, we were spared the worst of it. A huge pine tree, its roots loosened by the rain, fell from a neighbor's yard, just missing our house by inches. Otherwise, we were safe. For the time being anyway.

In 1994, our California adventure was winding down. We had experienced the "commemorative set" of natural disasters and were convinced that the good life of Southern California apparently included being scared to death by Mother Nature on a regular basis.

The night before the Northridge earthquake, we were wrestling the boys into bed, an hours-long routine that entailed bathing, reading and bribery. Those were the days of parental exhaustion, when the moment one’s head hit the pillow, one was out for the count unconscious until the baby monitor screamed to life at around 5:30 a.m.

When I first heard a distant rumbling at around 4:30 a.m, my sleep-deprived mind rationalized that it was just a sonic boom, which we heard on a daily basis. I tried to go back to sleep. Soon enough, the distant rumbling grew louder and closer, culminating in beds shaking and things falling. Taylor and I ran to get the boys and descended the staircase where our wild-eyed, usually calm dog was panting crazily. We ducked under the dining room table as the earth made visible waves under the carpeting. Our 3-year-old thought it was neato. The baby had his pacifier and was thoroughly enjoying this new nighttime game.

With no power for several days and aftershocks that came and went, we were unnerved but safe. A burst water pipe and ensuing damage was the worst of it for us. Neighbors were friendlier than they had ever been, since there were no electrical distractions such as television, computers, etc. We took to gathering in the cul-de-sac at dusk to talk about our losses. I remember getting into a discussion about natural disasters, saying that I would take hurricanes over earthquakes any day, while a born-in-California dude said that he’d never leave the state, regardless of its tectonic plate unpredictability.

It was at that very moment that I realized one could take the girl out of Jersey, but one could never take Jersey out of the girl. I was tired of THEIR natural disasters; I wanted to go home. And so, accompanied by the sideshow of the slo-mo OJ Simpson circus, we made our way back to the sanity of New Jersey. Did I mention that our first house in Mo’town was that of the recently disgraced Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams? Talk about disasters!