WHAT'S NEXT - A TSUNAMI

Southern California is such a great place to live (NOT!).

Such an exciting year with our ferocious fires, tenacious floods, unyielding landslides and today, we are again so lucky that we are getting to experience the ride of the 7.2 earthquake out of Baja California, Mexico. So, is a tsunami next?


http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/region/N_America_eqs.php

Even though we are a good distance from the epicenter, the sounds and effects linger. Car alarms are blasting, sirens are blaring, neighbors are congregating and all the local TV channels are in full chatter.

This quake was deep into the earth so it came through our place in a rolling motion lasting a good 30 seconds. The whole house swayed as if someone were holding us in their hand and rocking us while in a rocking chair. Had our pool been full like it should have been, it would have overflowed and filled our back patio. The news has tons of pictures coming in of other peoples pools experience the same thing.

Is this a wake up call? Ya! I lived in Northern California in 1989 for the 7.1 Loma Prieta quake. We were less than 20 miles from the epicenter of this one. Being from the Rocky Mountains, this was a completely foreign experience for me and it was not a good experience. That quake was a rolling quake and felt like we were on a conveyor belt with a roller coming up and down under us. Our house had minor structure damage compared to others. We lost some our crystal and china, but everybody was safe. There were minor aftershocks for a few weeks and the feelings of shakiness and instability lasted for months.

I then moved to Los Angeles in 1994 just in time to experience the 6.7 Northridge earthquake. I certainly wasn't prepared for that one either. And it was so different than the Loma Prieta quake. The Northridge quake was a shaker not a roller and so much more intense. The aftershocks for this one lasted for months as well.

Because California has little quakes all the time it is so easy to forget that "the big one" could just be around the corner and being prepared for it just hasn't had any priority. It is so easy to watch the other parts of the world experience earthquakes and remain blind to the fact that we live on huge active faults and have another one hit us and be quite damaging.

So, as hard as it is to admit it's time to stop playing Russian roulette and get prepared.