Fun_People Archive
19 Jan
Shake, Rattle, and Roll

Date: Wed, 19 Jan 94 23:48:04 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: Shake, Rattle, and Roll

 From: Joseph Goldstone <joseph@black-sand.slip.netcom.com>

To answer a frequent question (perhaps proactively in the case of some of the
above recipients) Penny and I are doing just fine here in sunny Southern Cal. 
Sleeping in our clothes within 3 feet of the front door of course, but just
fine, really.

The 4:31am primary shock felt like a bulldozer trying to push the house over
and having a tough time getting enough of a foothold to do so.  Everything
since then has been within my experience, but the first moments were ~11 times
(log2[6.6-5.9] in my head, sorry) more exciting than anything in my prior
experience.  Anything over a 3.5 can still wake me up (I have friends who slept
through the 5.5 the other day, but they had just worked 20 hours straight), but
we don't usually bother going outside unless it feels like it's more than 4.5
or so -- doorways and desks seem like adequate shelter for something that only
feels like a car hitting the front of the building.

Very little has fallen down here in Venice.  Some people out there are
confusing Venice the beach city [relatively untouched] with Venice the
3-lanes-each-way surface street, that now would only permit go-karts or perhaps
wheeled luge sleds to pass underneath the Venice/I-10 interchange.  Anyone who
had been caught on Venice Avenue below that thing wouldn't have been pancaked
but they never would play for the Lakers, that's for sure.

Santa Monica is somewhat more affected, there are storefronts that have pretty
much spilled everything into the street on the north side of town [esp. Montana
ave for you PRoSM cognoscenti], there was an auto dealership that now only has
compact cars in its showroom and interior storage areas, and at 18th St. and
California Ave a gas explosion took out a building or two.

At least here in West LA the mood is pretty good, people are being very
friendly and cooperative.  Elsewhere not so much.  Severe price gouging in the
Valley during the first few hours, one store for instance getting $8 per gallon
of milk.

The curfew is now in its second night and is somewhat disturbing; if it runs
into a third night it will be really disturbing [from a civil liberties point
of view], if applied down here in the relatively-undamaged areas below the
Santa Monica mountains.

The Venice combination of cynicism, humor, and entreprenurial spirit is of
course still strong.  Four minutes after the quake we were outside, another
minute and we were at the beach, another minute we were at the water's edge. 
As far as we could see, it was dark, only an very occasional emergency light
was on.  Two minutes later we were back on the boardwalk (now 4:39).  Someone
was yelling "T-shirts!  Get your earthquake T-shirts here!  T-Shirts!".  I
rather doubt he had the goods but he certainly had the attitude.

Thanks for the inquiries, and for those who didn't inquire I hope you didn't
mind the slice-o'-life.

--joseph

© 1994 Peter Langston