For reasons I don't understand I often read the Times Colonist online before I go out to the front porch and pick up the morning's print edition.
This morning the online paper had this headline, "Tsunami warning for B.C. coast and Vancouver Island cancelled after 7.5 magnitude quake."
Once again I'm left wondering "what tsunami, what quake? What is it this time?" The only conclusion I can draw is that if, when, we do get hit by the Big One I won't know about it until my house starts hopping around or gets swept away on some mega-wave.
Deep sleepers are at some disadvantage. Many times I've been in line at the grocery store and heard locals going on about the latest quake. I try to turn away if they start looking at me for my input. I never have any nice anecdotes to add. Some talk about their furniture moving. Another had her baseboards pop off. Pictures fall off walls. Windows rattle. They wake up to feel the room quivering a bit. Sorry, nothing here, even my old beagle doesn't wake up any more.
It could be I'm finally getting immunized with Andean Fatalism although I do keep a good stock of first aid supplies, food and water as well as fishing and hunting gear. Many of us do at least some disaster preparedness in our homes.
Still, there's something about always finding out about these quakes and waves long after they're over.
1 comment:
"Deep sleepers are at some disadvantage"
In the late fifties I was a teenage ranch hand working on my uncle's ranch between Cody and Yellowstone. One night a large earthquake wreaked havoc in Yellowstone and down stream along the Yellowstone River. A dam cracked and almost gave way necessitating evacuation of some areas. Also an entire campground was buried by a quake caused rockslide (kinda like the Hope-Manning deal or Frank).
Meanwhile the next morning I woke up across the room from my bed and on the floor. When I went out to the kitchen everybody else was up and had been since the quake and I realized why I had woken up where I had, but I didn't even notice the quake at the time. Ironically, even though I spent much of my younger life in California, this was the biggest quake I ever experienced, and I missed it!
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