Livin' on the fault line

Shake map of the 7.2 earthquake at Baja California, Mexico on April 4, 2010. Red indicates violent perceived shaking. Image: U.S. Geological Survey

How does a Californian cope with the constant specter of an earthquake? Not including the state’s politics and economics, there are numerous trade-offs for the beautiful weather and scenery, namely drought, forest fires, torrential rain, mudslides, tremblers and quakes. Sandy Sand, who has dealt with her share of all of them in southern California, describes how she tries to stay one step ahead of nature.

Did you feel it? That was the question that echoed through halls, malls, and everywhere people gathered in Southern California the day after the 7.2 Easter Sunday Baja earthquake.

My earthquake-dar must be on the fritz, because I didn't feel a thing. If only I’d felt it! Then I could add my own account of what Easter Sunday’s quake felt like to the stories of the 1,999,999 people who did feel it.

Nonetheless, I have my own tale.

How I missed experiencing the sensation of my house rocking from side to side for the umpteenth time is beyond me.

I was sitting quietly in my den chair at what must have been the beginning when I decided I needed to refill my water glass.

It takes about three seconds to travel the distance from den to kitchen sink, and once at the sink it took another 30 seconds of standing there to let the water run cold enough.

Just as I turned the water off, a voice rang from upstairs. “Mom! Did we just have an earthquake?” Number Two daughter yelled.

“I don’t think so; I didn‘t feel anything!” I yelled back. “Let me check my trusty earthquake indicators.”

Looking up, I saw that the two kitchen ceiling fan chains were doing the hula and the dining room chandelier was swaying back and forth in a wide arc.

Coincidently, Number One daughter was in her room exercising, and I thought that possibly she was jumping and bouncing hard enough to make those two fixtures do their earthquake thing.

Because I didn’t feel anything, I made her do it again after they were done doing their dances. Poor thing! It was a quake and not exuberant exercise.

The next questions are usually: Where were you? What did it feel like?

The next questions are usually were you scared? How did your pets react? And finally and most importantly, are you prepared?

According to an informal Los Angeles Daily News poll, 52.9 percent said they were, so what of the 47.5 percent who aren’t?

Living in Southern California with all its built-in dangers from natural disasters, it’s wise to emulate good scouts and always be prepared for any eventuality.

It’s rained like it hasn’t for years, and threats of mudslides from above loom as large as Pacific Rim quakes in Japan, Haiti, Taiwan, Chili and now Baja remind us of threats from below and the possibility of our Big One.

Did recent mega and large quakes bring a momentary semblance of reality about our anticipated Big One, only to be forgotten as quickly as the headlines fade?

Before the last ember of the last forest fire was extinguished, officials warned residents to be prepared for what El Nino promised to be a heavy rainy season with its inevitable mud and debris flows, advising residents in slide-prone areas to start sandbagging themselves.

They did prepare. Individually and with the county they positioned K-rails, built retaining walls and erected sandbag barriers.

The burning question during raging brushfires is whether to evacuate or stay until flames come too close for comfort. With each rain storm they have to make the same stay-or-leave decision.

They’ve done all they can to protect their property; maybe there’s nothing left to do except get out of the way.

But how does one get out of the way of an earthquake? They’re not predictable like rain. All of California is an earthquake zone, and unbeknownst to us in the West Valley, we were at the epicenter of a fault in Northridge that kept itself secret until Jan. 17, 1994, with a 6.7 quake.

With the unpredictability of earthquakes, how does one really go about preparing, re-preparing and re-re-preparing?

Being quake-prepared isn’t quite as straight forward as public service announcements would make us believe…or I’m making a bigger deal out of it than the Big One might be.

We just remembered the 16th anniversary of the 6.7 Northridge quake, and Feb. 9 went unnoticed as the 39th anniversary of the 6.6 Sylmar quake. My house survived both, but will it survive another magnitude 6.0 or greater?

Quite a while back I bought five earthquake kits from a charity fund-raiser at a cost of about $260. Three (one for each car), one deluxe model for the house and one for the dog. All come with standard issue must-haves: Portable radio, first-aid kit -- even the dog’s kit has one -- flashlight, water and food packets. But, like the water in the front hall closet and garage, the kits’ food and water has to be replaced.

Writing this reminded me that it might be a good idea to check them for expiration dates. The dog’s food expired two years ago, but the nine, eight-ounce boxes of water, each with a straw (I wonder if I can teach him to drink from a straw?), don’t expire until November. I must have bought the kits longer ago than I thought.

The people food and four-ounce water packets (approved by the U.S. and Canadian coast guard-approved) don’t have expiration dates, but were manufactured five years ago, so they should be replaced.

And if my house were to literally fall off its foundation even though two contractors have assured me it’s well-grounded, where is the best place to store gallon bottles of water and earthquake kits? Outside? In the garage? If it’s all in the garage, what if the garage tumbles down, but the house remains standing? Upstairs? Downstairs? All of the above?

We have stringent building codes, all with earthquakes in mind to keep us relatively safe, yet even they can’t protect us from the unthinkable. Nature always throws surprises at us and even the best built building can become a victim.

The bottom line is be prepare for the worst and hope for the best.