Natural Disaster Etiquette

What a thunderstorm we had last night! I hate them. I feel like thunderballs live in the attic and want to burst through the ceiling and kill me. The flashes of light outside make me flinch and I can't relax until it is quiet. Sometimes I slip down to the basement Man Cave to escape. It's dark, stinky and safe down there. Hopefully Marty will throw his body over me to protect me from a tornado. But given our history with natural disasters, I'm not so sure.

It was 1999, and we experienced an earthquake that scored a 7.1 on the Richter Scale. I was visiting Marty when he lived in Joshua Tree. Around 2:30 a.m., southern California SHOOK. I learned later that the quake lasted for 35 seconds. While 35 seconds doesn’t sound like much time, it’s a lifetime when you are experiencing sheer terror. When the earthquake began, I shot out of bed and ran for the sliding glass door at the back of the apartment. Here is a tip for you. Don’t sleep naked. Ever. Nudity will always prevent a dignified escape. At any age. So instead of escaping, I wisely took cover next to sliding glass doors. Death by jagged shards of flying glass didn't occur to me in the moment. I crumbled to the floor, huddled on my knees and covered my head. I expected the roof to collapse, but at least the doors held fast.

During those next 30 seconds, I huddled, listened and felt. What I heard were car alarms, barking dogs, glass breaking, and Marty, shouting my name in panic. He sleeps like the dead, and by the time he woke up, the waterbed was sloshing so violently he couldn't get out. He later said that it felt like he was white water rafting. Here's another tip for you. Never own a waterbed. For many reasons.

The most prominent noise was that of the quake itself, like a moving locomotive, with me in the runaway caboose. When the quake ended and blackness settled around us, Marty stepped free of the River Wild and we frantically embraced each other. We walked into the living room to find a flashlight and assess the damage. The problem now was, although clothed, we were barefoot and the flashlight batteries were dead. Of course. We lit candles because open flame in the aftermath seemed like another wise decision. The living room looked ransacked, and several of Marty’s drinking glasses had shattered right there in the cupboard.

The phone lines were working, so I called my mom. It was 6:00 a.m. in Philadelphia, but she answered the phone like a good mom always does. I told her there had been an earthquake and I was certain that California had snapped off from the continent and was floating out to sea. She turned on her TV. The quake had been felt from Las Vegas to Phoenix to San Diego. Joshua Tree was only 30 miles from the epi-center. An Amtrack train had derailed, but nothing was floating to sea. Damage was minimal because most of the area is underpopulated desert and everyone was in bed.

Hopefully Marty and I could apply better sense to a Carolina Tornado Emergency than we did during the Quake of '99. Honestly I don't even know where the flashlight is, and I'll bet its batteries are dead. Would he throw his body across mine to protect me? Maybe. If he's awake. I can't help remembering that during the quake, I was the one who abandoned him entirely and ran for the door. I hope he doesn't expect me to throw my body across his - you're on your own, Sucker!

Joshua Tree National Park, 1999. We have better photographs (pre the digital age) but I didn't feel like searching for them. Maybe later.