Earthquake in Illinois renkindles memories of California quakes

The Illinois earthquake that shook people awake shortly after 4:30 a.m. Friday as far away as Des Moines, reminded me of my experience with the 1989 earthquake that halted the San Francisco Giants-Oakland Athletics world series. I wrote about it when an earthquake hit the Los Angeles area. Here is that Ramblin' column from Jan. 18, 1994.

When I turned on the television Monday morning, all I could find were pictures of the destruction caused by the earthquake in Los Angeles.

I wanted to see what happened. I didn't want to see. I wanted to know everything about it. I didn't want to know a thing.

Confusion? Yes.

The mention of a California earthquake makes me shudder. I've been that way since Tuesday, Oct. 17, 1989.

At 5:03 p.m., I reclined in my favorite chair, sipped a Diet Coke, read the newspaper and waited for the third game of the World Series to begin. At 5:04 p.m., I was on my knees in the doorway between my living room and kitchen, my arms curled over my head and my eyes closed as the earth rumbled and the world caved in around me.

It's The Big One, I thought.

This was the earthquake 5 million people in the San Francisco Bay Area knew was coming but never really expected. The one seismologists had warned us about. It will go down as the most destructive earthquake in U.S. history until another eclipses it.

Watching television, I feared that the Los Angeles quake was that one. It struck in the middle of a heavily populated area at 4:31 a.m. Monday, measuring a preliminary 6.6 on the Richter scale. The Bay Area quake's preliminary figure was 6.9. Not much of a difference.

My first exposure to an earthquake came shortly after moving to California in November 1987. I sat in my car, listening to the radio and waiting in line to enter the I-280 on-ramp to drive north from San Jose toward San Francisco. My car shook. I thought a car tapped me from behind. Then the radio announcer said we'd had an earthquake. It measured 2.7.

Mmmm. That was cool. Now I could say I'd felt an earthquake.

After that first time, I doubt if a month went by without a temblor. Sometimes there'd be a couple in one week. In the office, one co-worker would turn to another. "I bet it was a 3.2." "Nope, not more than 2.5." "Wanna bet?"

Earthquakes became a game. Sometimes one would hit 4.0. Mostly they were pretty tame. They happened, you talked about them for a few minutes, they were forgotten.

After one small quake, I told an acquaintance I was from Iowa, where such things don't happen.

"I wouldn't live there," she said. "You have tornadoes and blizzards. It sounds awful."

At least with weather-related disasters, I said, you can listen to forecasts. You can look into the sky and see it coming. But the weather can be perfect when the earth shakes. There's no warning. The earth moves. There is no escape.

"I'd rather be in an earthquake than those storms," she said.

As The Big One quit vibrating around me, my heart pounded through my chest. The 20 seconds had seemed like a lifetime. I stood on wobbly legs and surveyed the damage. Hanging plants swung freely. Vases, lamps and stereo speakers had tipped over. Dishes, glasses and a box of spaghetti had crashed to the kitchen

floor. Pictures had fallen off the walls.

In two minutes the earth shook again.

"Oh no!"

I returned to a fetal position on the floor. The aftershock was over in 15 seconds.

I stood on shaky legs. Again the earth moved. Six times in a half-hour.

"Stop!!!"

In the 12 hours after the first quake, we had 62 aftershocks of 3.0 or greater. The electricity, gas and telephones were still out. Without a battery-powered radio, I could only sit in the candlelight and listen to the wail of distant sirens.

In the morning, when the sun rose in a clear sky, I read the newspaper. Early reports said 76 people died. More than 200 more might have been killed in the collapse of the I-680 bridge in Oakland. Houses, apartment buildings, businesses, cars and freeways were destroyed. Estimates topped $1 billion.

Yet my mail arrived on time. I worked, as did most everyone. The aftershocks became less frequent, but more tiresome. People quit jamming stores to buy bottled water, food and batteries. Panic settled. Nerves calmed. Facts sorted themselves from fiction.

The official death toll stood at 63. More than 1,000 people were seriously injured. Damage topped $7 billion. The quake was a 7.1, the first aftershock a 5.9. The epicenter was 12 miles from my

home.

Two weeks after the main earthquake, a 4.4 aftershock shook me out of bed. Maybe I'd been lucky, like most area residents. But the constant reminders became disheartening.

In less than a year I was back in Iowa.

There are times, particularly when wind chill temperatures dip to 50 below zero, that I long to return to the moderate climate of Northern California. Then an earthquake makes news and I remember

how, without warning, a perfectly care-free, cloudless afternoon can become a nightmare.