Return
to the epicenter
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Robert Mittendorf/Special
to the Sentinel People showed up in everything from hiking
boots to high-heeled shoes to walk the half-mile through
the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park to the first impromptu
sign marking the epicenter. |
By
SANDY LYDON
Special to the Sentinel
October
17, 1989
DAY
BROKE WARM and still. An offshore breeze had pushed back the
fog, leaving the air filled with the perfume of redwood and
Douglas fir. As we left the house I looked up and repeated the
mantra I learned growing up in Hollister: “Earthquake weather.”
Annie
sighed. “Yea. Right. You always say that.”
I remember feeling a bit defensive and thinking, yes, I do
always say that when it’s windless and muggy. It wasn’t until
days later that I remembered my off-handed comment, and by
then it was much too late.
We drove away, leaving our German Shepherd, China, tucked
into her bed in the house, which is perched on a sandstone
ridge top in the Santa Cruz Mountains about two miles due
south of ground zero.
China never got over what happened later that day. The earthquake
turned her world so upside down that, for the rest of her
life, the rumble of a passing truck would widen her eyes and
send her into our laps. I’ve never gotten over it either,
and I hope I never do.
I didn’t realize it, but by the time we got back to the house
that evening I was already slipping into shock. A lifetime
of 5.0 earthquakes did not inoculate this Earthquake Cowboy
for a 6.9. My strongest memory of the next week is that my
arms seemed too heavy to lift, and I had a bitter, metallic
taste in my mouth. I shuffled uselessly around the house staring
at the broken glass while Annie cleaned things up.
The next day I sat numbly on the roof watching the helicopters
parading along the far ridge like giant, flying insects trailing
water buckets to a forest fire started by electrical lines
bouncing together. When hand crews finally got in to mop up,
they found the ground littered with dead anchovies that had
been scooped up with the sea water off New Brighton beach.
Earthquake, fire and anchovies. Brimstone couldn’t be far
behind.
My wits returned weeks later. Determined to confront the cause
of it all, a group of us hiked deep into the Forest of Nisene
Marks State Park to visit the epicenter. Beyond the “trail
closed” sign that had been posted at a makeshift epicenter
marker, we entered what could have been a war zone.
The canyon floor was covered with boulders and jackstrawed
trees. We had to cut through the brush with handsaws. We scrabbled
across fresh cliff faces cutting new trail with rock hammers.
Geologist Jerry Weber, probably the first scientist to hike
to the epicenter, kept muttering, “I can’t believe this!”.
I finally understood why the Loma Prieta Lumber Co. had abandoned
its logging operation just north of here after the 1906 earthquake.
Mother Nature had flounced her skirts and asked them to leave.
We finally topped out on a terrace shattered with cracks and
crevices, the forest floor strewn with the green tops of redwood
trees. Images of collapsed freeways, crumbled brick buildings
and broken bridges were not nearly as frightening as the realization
that the acceleration of the earth’s crust at the epicenter
was fast enough to whiplash redwood trees. It looked as if
it had rained Christmas trees. Seeing what nature did to her
own stuff made it easier to deal with what she did to ours,
and we all hiked back to begin the work of recovery.
Each
October since, I have hiked back to the epicenter to monitor
not only nature’s recovery, but my own. So, this month, I
tossed sandwich and notepad into my day pack and set out on
my annual pilgrimage to look down the seismic gun barrel of
the Loma Prieta earthquake.
October
1999
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Photo courtesy of Harlie Peterson
First
party to the epicenter: Harlie Peterson, top center,
next to his wife Pat, erected the first sign marking
the epicenter within days of the quake.
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The
five-mile hike to the epicenter begins at the Porter Picnic
Area gate. For the first two miles I share it with the chatter
of bicyclists and runners. Once the trail crosses Aptos Creek
the noise fades, leaving only the gurgle of the creek and the
crunch of tanoak acorns and bigleaf maple leaves.
In the weeks and months that followed the earthquake, thousands
of people poured up this trail to visit the place where the
commotion began. Folks showed up in everything from hiking
boots to high-heeled shoes to walk the half-mile to the first
impromptu sign marking the epicenter. That original sign and
several later ones were stolen. Today about a mile up the
Aptos Creek Trail there is an official state park sign marking
the epicenter, giving date, time, magnitude and coordinates.
There’s little evidence of the quake here, but if you continue
another 1.5 miles and pay your dues by working up a steep
switchback, the drama will unfold.
The first indicators are six-inch wide crevices that zigzag
across the trail and disappear into the brush, as if a huge,
crazed gopher had torn across the hillside. Not long after
the trail levels off, I walk onto the first overlook high
above Aptos Creek. The air has a bluish cast and the canyon
is filled with the smell of smoke drifting from the fires
in the Los Padres National Forest.
The name Loma Prieta is Spanish for dark mountain, and refers
to the dark, brooding aspect the mountain projects when seen
from the Monterey side of the bay. Early Californios thought
the mountain to be somewhat forbidding. Now we know why.
I find my favorite place for lunch on the cliff top where
I can lean back against a tanoak and dangle my feet above
the ribbon of creek 300 feet below. Had I been sitting here
at 5:04 a decade ago today I would have ridden a 20-foot wide
section of mountain down into the canyon like Slim Pickens
rode the bomb in Dr. Strangelove.
Intervening winter storms have exfoliated the cliff, allowing
only a few redwood seedlings and pampas grass clumps to gain
a purchase on the slope. The danger of sitting here is punctuated
by a long, deep striation running about 10 feet behind me,
marking where the land will separate and drop into the canyon
the next time. And there will be a next time. As geologist
Weber constantly reminds me: gravity always wins.
But, I rationalize, this cliff has been hanging fire for 10
years. Certainly it will stay put until after I’ve had my
lunch.
Our images of 5:04 came from store security cameras, television
crews at Candlestick Park and amateur video shot on the Bay
Bridge. Unfortunately there was no video camera running here
and we can only imagine what it must have been like: a rain
of leaves, dead limbs, followed by the crash of trees falling
into the ravines; rocks as big as houses kicked loose from
the ridges and careening through the forest, slicing through
mature trees like butter; entire mountainsides roaring down
into the canyons, causing a veil of dust to hang above the
mountains long after nightfall. The bucking and heaving of
the earth’s surface left a mosaic of crevices running every
which way. Nature’s stretch marks. The rains have softened
the edges of the cracks, but even after a decade, it takes
little imagination to reconstruct the enormity of that moment.
Earthquake
memory
Meanwhile,
we humans spent the decade covering up the evidence of the earthquake;
patching the cracks, repairing the overpasses, building new
structures and doing everything we could to blot out the memory.
The phrase “earthquake retrofit” has entered our everyday speech,
and though we’re not sure exactly what it means, it makes us
feel safe.
I suppose we needed to get back on the horse that threw us,
but I’m afraid we’ve been much too good at it. The reality
of the earthquake has faded into the background to become
our little secret.
Part of the motive to bury the memory is based on the cycle
of investment and speculation upon which we all depend. The
economic momentum of this county is predicated on others finding
our property desirable and paying more for it than we did.
They won’t buy our stuff if we tell them the truth about what
lurks beneath the earth. Thus, a conspiracy of silence has
grown up. We all agree not to mention what happened. Get the
holes filled in, the buildings back up, and put the photographs
in a drawer.
Historians and geologists are not very popular when they continue
to harp on the risks of living here. It’s not good for the
economy.
There are other ways to deal with disaster memories. For example,
the Chinese city of Tangshan, an industrial center just east
of Beijing, was destroyed by an 8.2-magnitude earthquake in
July 1976. That earthquake killed upwards of 250,000, making
it the largest earthquake disaster in modern history.
The people of Tangshan chose not to forget and seven sites
in the restored city have been kept as they were following
their earthquake. I take groups of Californians to Tangshan
whenever I can and show them the university library building
that is half as tall as it was, the lower floors forever pancaked
together.
At the town’s center is a museum whose walls are covered with
photographs of the devastation and recovery. Beside the museum
is a huge monument with scenes depicting the quake and the
heroic efforts of the survivors to rescue the wounded and
bury the dead.
Where
we were
Memories
Of Loma Prieta
Experiencing
the quake ‘on the air’
I
was a reporter for the Santa Cruz bureau of KSBW and
had just introduced a story about an education program
from our bureau inside Branciforte Plaza. Right when
the videotape portion started,
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Jan Bollwinkel-Smith |
the
quake hit. I sat behind my “on-air” desk and could not
move. I watched as photographer Rito Padilla ran under
the doorway.
As soon as the shaking stopped, we quickly went outside
to start reporting. When I watch my live shots from
later that evening, I realize how much I was out of
it, and how, despite my training as a reporter, I was
still a person who had gone through a disaster. I think
that was a critical point for me, making me wonder that
maybe I was too emotional to be a reporter.
Jan
Bollwinkel-Smith
Santa
Cruz
Stay
calm, enjoy the coaster ride
I
was walking toward a supermarket. I then observed an important
lesson in Mother Nature’s power and human sensibilities.
The parking lots and lamp posts swayed with each pulse
of the earth’s tectonic energy; and, simultaneously with
that erratic rhythm, little kids with frantic parents
gyrated and screamed.
Children accompanied by a parent who told them “It’s
only an earthquake and nothing to be afraid of” got
out of harm’s way (the large storefront windows), remained
calm and enjoyed the ensuing roller coaster ride.
Steve
Matarazzo
Aptos
FEMA,
Red Cross to the rescue
The
ground shook. The cabin slid 5 feet off its foundation.
CRASH goes the bookshelf onto my foot, fracturing it
in three places. Redtagged, homeless not for long. FEMA
and Red Cross to the rescue. New house, nine months
later, new baby. That’s my story. I am grateful to my
Lompico neighbors for helping me. I am disgruntled with
hospital for losing my paperwork and making me wait
nine hours for a doctor, and I am thankful for the Red
Cross and FEMA for making everything easier.
Patricia
Castro-Leon
Aptos
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The
few monuments we have erected to the Loma Prieta earthquake
are soft and fuzzy by comparison. The one in front of Watsonville’s
City Hall comes closest with its tumbled bricks and broken
walls. But it is too symmetrical, too artistic and doesn’t
have a sharp enough edge to keep the memory alive. I’m talking
about a remembering that goes beyond strapping down the water
heater and bolting the house to the foundation. Government
agencies have sprung up to help me remember to store water
and fresh batteries, but none has tried to teach me how to
get past the shock that turned me into a lump of putty. It’s
a good thing nobody in my neighborhood was trapped or needed
help, because I wasn’t able to provide it.
The very best writing on earthquake response was by Stewart
Brand in the Whole Earth Review, Volume 68, Fall 1990. I’ve
seen nothing else that deals with the issues of shock and
the dynamic of human behavior immediately following a disaster.
The
only place I can keep the memory alive is up here at the epicenter.
I come back here at least once a year to revive that overwhelming
feeling of humility that followed the earthquake and resharpen
the awareness that we are puny and arrogant in the way we
approach living here. Many of us learn how to live “in” Santa
Cruz County, but we rarely learn how to live “with” it.
Living here is a crapshoot. Earthquakes are the ultimate random
event. Just when you fall completely in love with yourself
and the place you’ve carved out, the earth will shake and
break your heart.
A chill creeps up the canyon and the sun begins to slide behind
the ridge. Time to go. I brush the dirt off my pants, give
the tanoak a goodbye pat and wonder if either of us will still
be here next October.
As I hike back down the darkening canyon, I remember seeing
the effect of the earthquake in my dog’s eyes. She seemed
to think it was something we had done, and the passage of
years never restored the faith she had in us before her world
turned topsy-turvy at 5:04. She lived the rest of her life
with a nagging fear that things weren’t as secure and permanent
as she once believed.
With any luck, so will I.
-
Sandy Lydon is a member of the history faculty at Cabrillo
College.
Science
still looking for ways to predict
By
LARA WALLENTINE
Sentinel
correspondent
New technologies have shaken the foundations of old research
methods since the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989.
New quake-tracking techniques have been developed, old methods
have been improved upon, better post-warning systems are being
used worldwide and anyone can obtain updated seismic information
on the Web.
Yet despite the strides, no one yet can reliably predict an
earthquake.
“It’s
very attractive to think that you can be the discoverer of
the smoking gun,” said Thorne Lay, chair of the earth sciences
department at UC Santa Cruz. “It’s always possible, but nothing
has given us highly reliable prediction capability yet.”
A year after the Loma Prieta quake, a panel of scientists
headed by the U.S. Geological Survey convened to reassess
Bay Area earthquake threats and predicted a better than fifty-fifty
chance of a 7.0 magnitude quake striking before 2020.
More reliable warnings are not available largely because keeping
track of movement along a fault is so complex.
A fault is a narrow crack that separates blocks, or plates,
of the earth’s crust. The San Andreas Fault separates the
Pacific plate, which holds most of the California coast, from
the North American plate, the rest of California and the United
States.
Earthquakes are caused by friction or a build-up of pressure
along two plates.
Some small movements along faults can grow, undetected at
first, into larger ones. Some activity also is hard to measure
because it occurs too deep.
“We
can’t get down close to the faults — many occur deeper than
10 miles, deeper than humans have ever drilled or dug.” said
Lay.
Mapping
the faults
Since
1989, much of the new technology has focused on providing a
more extensive map of how the earth’s crust is moving.
“If
we can figure out how it’s moving, then we have a much more
direct measure of the process that is producing earthquakes,”
Lay said.
Months after the Loma Prieta quake, U.S. Geological Survey
researchers were busy causing more shaking of their own. Using
dynamite, researchers set off explosions near the epicenter
and recorded where the ground shook at different positions.
By calibrating the velocity of sound waves through the rock,
scientists were able to refine the earthquake location.
Lay said there were a lot of surprises.
The movement of the crust suggested the earthquake actually
had taken place on a secondary fault and not the San Andreas
as originally believed.
Understanding exactly what happened then is important to help
predict what could happen.
“There
is still a potential for the San Andreas to fail again,” the
UCSC scientist said, “but a lot of strain in the region was
released by the 1989 event.”
During the Loma Prieta clean-up, government geologists installed
radio-linked seismographs on the San Andreas Fault in the
Santa Cruz Mountains. During significant aftershocks, the
seismographs would set off beepers, warning workers at the
collapsed Cypress bridge on Interstate 880 in Oakland of impending
danger. The warning gave the workers about 15 seconds to clear
the area before an aftershock or another quake.
Practical
uses
Similar
post-earthquake warnings are used around the world. In Japan,
bullet trains have sensors that shut down the train when ground
shaking exceeds a certain level. Lay said such warnings may
be used more extensively in California in the future. Warning
systems could be used to stop traffic on overpasses, for instance,
or shut down gas lines.
Lay said that while the science of predicting earthquakes
is still evolving, there have been improvements over the past
decade because of improved instruments and better understanding
of the geology of quakes.
The introduction of geological positioning systems has allowed
researchers to measure changes in the crust over longer periods.
The system is used for a variety of things, including navigation.
It relies on 24 satellites and several receivers.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena masterminded another
new technique that was released in August 1995. Using radar,
the lab can take pictures of large land areas. Over several
years, the before and after pictures can be compared to determine
where earthquake occurrence is a high possibility.
Fred Klein, USGS seismologist, said the organization has begun
to build new seismographic stations and update the old with
digital seismometers. Digitizing the equipment allows bigger
signals and more frequencies to be recorded. Analog signals
were used in the past. More than 380 stations that track small
and continuous motion are scattered throughout Northern California.
More strong-motion stations that record only larger earthquakes
are also being built.
Data
on the Internet
The
Web also has changed the way the world looks at earthquakes.
Hourly updated movements, links to experts and page after page
of information about seismology research is available to anyone
who is interested.
In April 1996, the USGS and UC Berkeley unveiled a network
called “Earthworm,” which is used to detect and track earthquakes
in Northern and Central California. This data was put on the
Internet. Since then, available earthquake information has
become more abundant and timely.
USGS Web sites list ongoing projects and contacts as well
as all the data collected by deformation instruments in specific
regions such as the Bay Area.
The Recent Earthquake information system provides a map showing
all the earthquakes in California within the past week. The
creators consider it a major step because it combines data
from Northern and Southern California seismograph networks.
It is at www.usgs.gov/.
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