Or cities so frozen that the dead cannot be counted until the spring thaw. The irony is that many of those “ are you okay?!” messages come from zones that catch twenty tornadoes per year. But everybody has seen certain movies, and in their dark, secret hearts they want to hear that bridges have collapsed and wholesale panic reigns, because that would serve us all right for living on the Left Coast, Sodom to New York’s Gomorrah. It’s not worth mentioning until skyscrapers keel over and fissures swallow cars.
That’s what most local seismic events feel like. Think of how your bed wiggles side-to-side when a cat jumps onto it, or your partner merely seats him or herself on the opposite end. It might throw your balance off for a moment, but you keep walking. Most Southern California quakes are akin to one misstep while strolling. If a racecar driver whined to national media about a slight rear-end shimmy at 180mph, he’d be laughed out of the pit, whereas if he crashed and made a fireball, it would be noteworthy on the old daily feed. If a luxury liner takes on a little water, that’s not news if the ship keels over or sinks, that’s news. We didn’t even notice the calamity and probably slept through it. What is more annoying is that any temblor at all is classified as an “earthquake,” thereby making the news, which prompts a flood of emails and phone calls from the East: “ Are you okay?!” Californians don’t even get out of bed for less than a 5.0.
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