Twenty years ago: Loma Prieta earthquake

Yesterday was the 20^th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake. I live in Sonoma County which is about 45 miles north of San Francisco.

I will never forget that horrible day. After moving to California in the mid-seventies, I found it fun when an earthquake or a tremor happened; I had no experience with them coming from the mid-west and therefore, never having gone through any of the bigger quakes in the state I had nothing to compare them to, seismic wise.

It was October 17, 1989. A lovely, warm California evening and I was enjoying something on TV…most people were watching the World Series. I had no idea of the time then, but we know now it was 5:04 pm when it struck. My couch suddenly began to move and I wasn’t quite sure what had caused it. I stood up to go to the door and the apartment began shaking violently. Being on the second floor I did what you are not supposed to do during a quake; I flew open the front door and tried running down the cement stairs. They were shaking so much I ran back into the apt. and slid under the kitchen table.

The apt. was continuing to shake extremely hard and for the first time heard the rattling sound that some people describe as the sound of a train. The light fixture above the table swung back and forth and things were moving on shelves. I remember being absolutely terrified and wondered if I might die. My boyfriend had just parked and stepped out of the car unbeknownst to me. He told me later he saw the neighbor woman and her daughter with their mouths open but he couldn’t hear any sound. My teenage son was not there, either.

While hugging the floor under the table I began hearing neighbors outside screaming and figured I would rather be out there with them and hopped down the stairs three at a time!! I flew down them and don’t remember my feet touching anything solid until landing on the ground.

Everyone was yelling and milling about with anxiety. Someone had a radio and that is when we learned the Bay Bridge had partially collapsed; that made things even more serious. We learned of the fires and death of people as time went by. We all thought this was the ‘big one’!

I don’t remember much after this but Joe and I didn’t want to sleep in our apt. and we ended up sleeping on the floor at my sister and brother-in-law’s house that night. I was NOT going to go through aftershocks if they happened.

I need not say that October 17, 1989, ended the enjoyment of feeling the earth move under my feet after that. I was ruined from that day forward. I didn’t know just how upset the Loma Prieta quake made me until a year later on the date ABC, I think, showed a movie based on that day and out of nowhere I burst into tears and my body shook. Over the years we have had other smaller quakes that rolled or jolted us for a second or two and I experience real anxiety and get weepy. Someday, again, the ‘Big One’ will hit and I will not be ready for it, either. But then, no one will truly be ready for it.