Loma Prieta

My mother, living in Marin County, sent an email this afternoon to me in Brooklyn and my sister in Delaware and my cousin near Devon, England:

Greetings,

The news this morning is telling us that 30 years ago today the Loma Prieta earthquake took place. Gavin, you had just moved to Santa Cruz, and as I recall you were shaken up for a long while. M., you were NOT on the bridge in a car but on BART. Right? How did you and T. land up having dinner at Aunt Sheila’s? Did you spend the night there? We felt one hard jolt in Stockton and that was about all. But the Bay Area did have considerable damage.

Who eventually won the World Series, the Giants or A’s?

It just so happens that we have had some minor shakes this week in the Bay Area.  We’ll see.

Love,

Mom

Mom (and M. and T.), 

I was working in Capitola, at ASAP Systems, ready to head home to watch Game 3 of the A's-Giants World Series, about to start at Candlestick Park. When things began to fall off the walls I have a distinct memory of scrambling under my large desk, but another staffer later told me she saw me standing stock still, frozen. I don't know which version is true. I also couldn't say how long the quake lasted: 30 seconds? 3 minutes? The power went out, but the office didn't suffer much damage, and I took my regular bus home, to Beach Flats, in Santa Cruz, right on schedule. As I waited three dogs trotted in triangle formation down 41st Avenue toward the beach, tongues out, eyes wide, tags jangling, disturbed but determined, as if on a mission. As the bus neared central Santa Cruz I saw more and more destruction -- trees fallen, houses off their foundations, a building partially collapsed -- and it slowly dawned: this was bad. But my apartment wasn't damaged, just messy. (I lived in a long two-story complex, likely built in the '60s, and my apartment was on its eastern edge; I later learned that apartments on the western side, nearer the ocean, had experienced a "whip-crack" effect as the ground rolled beneath them, and they suffered foundation and water-heater damage that required them to evacuate. But as my place was nearer the handle, as it were, little was disturbed.) I wandered around town, chased off a bridge by a solo cop, kept away by a phalanx of cops from downtown (where many buildings collapsed and several people died), picking up snatches of news from people with battery-powered transistors. (Freeway collapse! Bay Bridge section down!) Lots of people were hosting impromptu cookouts, and a kind stranger gave me a burger and some ice cream. (“It won’t last long,” she said.). I walked for hours, until long after sunset, dazed, opened up, unmoored. A visitor from Oklahoma told me he'd watched the parking lot where he was standing split right under his feet: "I have no idea how people live here," he said. (Don't you have entire seasons devoted to tornados?, I thought but didn't say.) The experience -- kaleidoscopic, vivid but turgid, as if I were moving underwater or in a dream -- made me realize that folks at the centers of news events can provide only limited witness: with granular detail but poor perspective, they can describe their tiny section of the elephant, with no idea of its size or shape or nature. 

I spent a couple of days helping at a Red Cross facility for the displaced set up at the county fairgrounds where I saw — could that be? it could only be — Mick Jagger, in Oakland for a Stones concert, having donated cash and now touring the epicenter, his body impeccably fit, his face remarkably lined, accompanied by a stunning blonde assistant; he sought conversation with nurses and volunteers, his manner that of a soothing, seasoned politician. Tremors were constant; the ground never seemed to stop moving. My office was closed and I had nothing to do. I slept little; I kept jerking awake, sturdy shoes and a go-bag by the bed. In the late afternoon of the second day, I was walking past a large, single-screen movie house (on Water Street, I think; the theater seems to be shut down) when I heard shopkeepers and residents exclaiming: power had been restored. Amazingly, the theatre manager was there -- by himself, as I recall -- and, when I asked, said “Absolutely!”: he was open for business. I bought a ticket and a box of Milk Duds, took my pick among the 250-odd red-velvet seats, and, all by myself, watched The Fabulous Baker Boys, which I've not seen since but remains in my memory a brilliant little film, a verdict no doubt tinged by my eagerness for escape. That night I called you and Dad and asked if I could come to Stockton, a trip that, for the carless, involved a van over the hill to San Jose, then a bus, then a train. I don't know that I was ever as happy to sit by the pool at 9030 Frankford Lane. 

They postponed the World Series for a week. The A's had won the first two games in Oakland, and they went on to win the next two delayed games at Candlestick to sweep a good Giants team -- perhaps the best single season in Oakland A's history, tinged if not tainted by the calamity. 

Here's to solid ground. Love,

Gavin