The Quake

The following story is from Tom McDonald-Sawyer, who explains that it is “a letter I wrote to family and friends back home in Maine of my earthquake experience. On the first anniversary of the quake, the Santa Cruz Sentinel asked for people’s stories so I sent it in. For the week leading up to the actual anniversary date 10/17/1990, they printed pages of what folks sent in. I kept looking for my story. . . . On the anniversary day itself, I opened up the paper and found my picture and my story took up the whole page.”

Here it is:

Tuesday, October 17, 1989:

I got out of work at 5:00 P.M. as usual. I ran down to the bus stop to catch a ride in to the downtown Santa Cruz Metro Center. There, I could get a bus to take me to Cabrillo College in Aptos. I had a class at 7:00.

An elderly man was waiting on the bench much as he does every day. I sat down on the opposite end and bent over my wallet to take out my bus pass. It was at that moment while looking downward that I felt the Earth rumble through my feet. I thought a large truck was passing by. I looked up as I put my pass in my shirt pocket. There was no truck in sight. A sharper shock jolted me to my feet. I spun around and grabbed the bench to keep from being thrown to the ground. A deafening roar assaulted my ears.

The intensity didn’t diminish. I turned my head from side to side ready to jump out of the way of anything that might fall on me from above. The trees and the telephone pole next to the bench were doing a frantic dervish dance. A small blue house twelve feet from me was jiggling like a plate of Jell-O that’s been brusquely set on a table.

Directly in front of me was the parking lot to a Christian elementary school. There were three cars in it. Little four to six inch ripples were scurrying towards me in the asphalt. They were making the cars rock so violently I expected to see them leap into the air.

I couldn’t stop looking at them. A terrorizing moment of madness swept my mind. I said to myself, “This is it. This is the big one!” I fully expected to see the earth in front of me open up and swallow me whole.

They say it lasted about 15 seconds. It felt like an hour but it did finally stop.

I looked over at the old man. He was sitting perfectly still, staring directly in front of himself. I started telling him what I had seen. He told me how the power lines had whipped around and around as the poles dipped back and forth. A man about my age went by in a 4-wheel drive and let out a big whoop. I answered back a shrill release of my own.

The bus cruised to a stop in front of us. The door opened and the driver smiled out, “You’re still alive!” The older man hurried onto the bus. My legs were like rubber. It felt like the Earth wasn’t a solid mass beneath me.

The driver expressed concern about driving on the overpass that took us across Highway 17. We made it all right. Everyone that we stopped to pick up had wide open eyes. Some were totally silent while others related briefly an impression of their experience.

There was a large cloud of dust billowing eastward. I kept looking for its source. Spotting it I pointed and spoke out loud, “The dust is coming from those sand cliffs. A big chunk broke off.” Then, “The overhead door in that garage fell.” The driver mentioned his radio was out.

Read Full Post »

A Downpour of Books

When I was young I would climb my family’s bookshelves like a veritable mountaineer. We used to live on High St., close to UCSC, and I was in the midst of an “ascent” when the earthquake happened. It was of course the one time my mom didn’t know where I was, and she was completely terrified to see me running from a downpour of books. She scooped me up and made for a doorway. We stayed with the neighbors for two days and two nights. From what I understand, barely a word was exchanged. My parents just appeared on their doorstep and hospitality was volunteered. It’s at once heartening and unfortunate that solidarity among humans sometimes requires a cataclysm to manifest itself.

People forget cell phones were not ubiquitous, or even common, and so they didn’t figure into the equation.

By “b c”

Read Full Post »

Loma Prieta at Olan Mills Picture Studios in Santa Cruz

I was living in Santa Cruz, up on Beach Hill. Had a nice little studio in the basement of the big blue barn looking house up there.

I was young, 19 years old, just out of high school spinning my wheels, nothing going on. I had been working as a car salesman out at Dave Hart Nissan in Watsonville, and as a warehouseman for Erics Deli on Coral St. in Santa Cruz, however, I was currently out of work.

I would borrow money from my folks for rent sometimes, and I had a plan, I was going to get in on this gig selling portrait sittings for Olan Mills picture studios. In case you are under 40, you may not recall them, but Olan Mills was a “traveling” portrait studio that would go from town to town, set up shop, make a bunch of appointments by telephone from a makeshift call center in a hotel room set up a bunch of “sittings” and then move on. They were legit, they took the pictures sold people prints etc, but it was just a sleazy sales job.

Well I had been “hired” which is a funny way of saying it, because they would hire anybody who was willing to sit down at a phone and read their script to the people on this list of phone numbers they gave you. I was on the job, nice thing, I could see the commission checks coming in, the promised payout was huge, something like 20% of the photo fees which were nearly $50 bucks!

They said the script took 2 minutes to read, and I had a list of hundreds of “Hot Leads” they said, so I was going to be in the money. If I was good I could go on the road, town to town like “Emma” or “Erma” I honestly can’t recall the woman’s name who was running the show. All I can remember is she was from Oklahoma.

My first shift started at 5 pm on October 17, 1989 at the “Travellers Inn” on Ocean street.

I was early 15 min or so, first day on the job, really wanted to get at it. Rent was due, well 17 days past due I guess, and I needed to log some time and get to work.

Erma, (Lets just call her “Erma” though I honestly don’t recall her actual name) got me started by going over the script, showing me the why’s and wherefore’s of what you needed to emphasize and say at what time etc. during the call. Total training time was maybe 10 minutes and at about 5:02 I sat down to make my first call.

(Warning, much of this that follows is a strenuous effort at recalling many faded details, caveat emptor)

Let’s see, David Alivos, number 867-5309 (you children of the 80′s will get the phone number reference)

Ring Ring….
Ring Ring….
Ring Ring….

David: Uh, Hello?

Paul: Hello Mr. Alivos ( the script had a nice blank spot where you inserted the leads name)

Paul: my name is Paul with Olan Mills picture studios and we are calling because we have come to this community to provide photographic portrait services to the residents in this area, we will only be in town for two weeks and I wanted to offer you a special…
(I’m reading from the script here, trying hard, it’s my first call, alot is riding on this, I need this job…)

David: Uh, what’s that… You know, things are shaking here, uh, crap…

Click… Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…..

The sound of a dead line.

“That’s not good” I thought to myself in the 3 seconds it took for the shock wave to travel from where David was in Aptos to where I was sitting on Ocean street in Santa Cruz.

Then it happened…

The shaking as I recall started with a big jolt, closely followed up by an up and down motion that was sort of diagonal?

I thought to myself “Wow, cool, this a good one”

I looked to Erma, and quickly deciphered from the horror in her eyes, that in her world…
This was not cool.

Erma, as I said before was from Oklahoma, and as I pontificated on this event later, there are not many earthquakes in Oklahoma. I was barely a year old in 1971 in Hollywood California when I felt my first one, a 6.5 in San Fernando. Mother says I slept right through it, not a peep, I’m not surprised, I still sleep like the dead. As a child, I recall smaller quakes the happened from time to time, we would ride through them, cheer about them a little bit, commiserate after they were over, call neighbors etc.

No big whoop.

Erma was clearly having a “Big Whoop” about this one.

It lasted longer than any other quake I had been in, and was way more violent. Being from Oklahoma, Erma didn’t know to get in the doorway where I had stepped to immediately after dropping the Pac Bell standard phone back in its cradle. She had started running about the room grabbing belongings, and whispering something I can only think was some sort of prayer.

I took her by the shoulders and led her to the door, at about that time the cover to the wall heater in the room popped off rather dramatically and bounced about the room, off the bed etc. She made a sound like someone who has just been caught in a net and snared to the ground, sort of a wheeze with a little sigh…

We stayed there in the doorway for what seemed like about a couple minutes, in retrospect I realize it was only about 10 seconds? 20 seconds? but I was mesmerized by the lantern that hung in the entry way to the motel and how it swung from side to side bashing itself against the roof of the carport and the glass falling to the ground around it.

The quake stopped, not suddenly, but like you were slowly turning the dial down over a few seconds.

Stillness.

And a symphony of sound.

Car Alarms, Burglar alarms, the sound of
Beep Beep Beep Beep
Wrinnnggggg WrrrrinnnnGGGGG, WrrrrrIIINNNNGGG.
Bwoooga, Bwoooga, Bwoooga.
Rang out from all over the lower ocean Street area I was in.

Erma was silent but skittish, as though she was waiting for some kind of final blow. I was curious and walked out into the parking lot just outside our door. The door was right up at the front of the motel near the office, I looked up behind me and all of the guests on the upper level had come out of their rooms to stand on the balconies.

A middle aged man and his wife in bathrobes looked down upon me and said in a strange accent…

“Wow, you have many uhf doze around hereabouts’ mate?”

I said “No, that was a big one.”

By Paul Sosbee

Read Full Post »

The Big One

I was five years old when the big one hit. I’m not sure if it was the first earthquake I’ve ever experienced or if I am just too young to remember any others that had happened before that. This one certainly was memorable. At the time my Mother owned a brown station wagon. The kind with fake wood paneling on the sides and a long trunk. Perfect for trips to the grocery store. On the day of the earthquake we were returning home from one of these trips.

I have one younger sibling and at the time my sister, who is a year and a half younger than me, was still confined to a child seat. Therefore I always had the great status symbol of the front passenger seat. This meant one of two things for me, I got to feel like a big boy, AND I got to be in charge of the radio. I was obsessed with the dial on that radio. I took great pride in being able to tune into a station just right and finding the minimal amount of static for a given channel. There was no bigger reward in the car then when I got a station to come in over the airwaves crystal clear.

Human memory is an unreliable thing. Even in adults. Over time things get warped and twisted and we can never be entirely sure of the details of our past. We have the gist though and so if some of the details seem a bit far fetched please remember that I was 5 years old and that when you’re five everything is more dramatic and pronounced than it really is. Also, the details I remember make for a much better story and because reality is subjective, and this is the reality I remember, it must be real. Or, at least real enough to tell.

We were coming home from the grocery store on the freeway, me in the prized front seat and my sister in the back. Suddenly the radio station that I had tuned into perfectly starting spitting static out of the speakers. I sprang onto the problem immediately and reached for the dial, but before I could our car suddenly swerved to the left. I was jolted and my outstretched hand missed the radio dial. As I fumbled for it again the car swerved to the right and I once again missed my mark. Frustrated at my mothers sudden ineptitude at driving I shouted.

“Mom!!! What are you doing!?!?!?!?!”

“It’s not me mijo!” she replied frightened.

My mom regained control of the car and brought us to the center lane. I’m not sure how long the earthquake actually lasted but I only remember these two swerves, once to the left and once to the right. I am also unsure as to how an earthquake would cause a car to swerve severely back and forth across a freeway. I remember my mother being freaked out and me sitting there annoyed that I had been interrupted from reaching the dial. We made it home and my mother wouldn’t let us go inside. She had been listening to the news the rest of the way home and there were warnings of potential aftershocks. I remember casualty reports and my mother explaining to me that people had died. In my head I imagined a group of people standing in front of a building and as the ground began to shake the building was dislodged from its foundation and came crashing down onto them. Without fully understanding the concept of death I still knew that it was something to be afraid of and sad for. The family across the street had several pets and they were all outside in their driveway surrounded by animals. Too afraid to go back inside lest the roof cave in on them. I ran into the middle of the street for fear that our house would betray me and topple over on top of me. The adults stood around talking to each other and I didn’t pay attention. Grown up conversations were often too difficult to decipher. There is so much we can’t understand until we have a concept for it. People dying didn’t really seem like a big deal to me at the time. I knew I should be worried and sad but only because I saw the grown ups around me worried and sad. Only when we understand the permanence of death can we really appreciate it.

This is where the memory ends. I’m sure my mother was worried about my father and the rest of our family. There were no cell phones then and it must have made events like these much more difficult to deal with when you couldn’t get in touch with the people you care about with the ease that we can today. I don’t remember when we went back inside, or any after shocks, or when my father got home from work, or if it even was a work day. I just remember being annoyed at the swerving car and being sad and afraid of something I didn’t really understand. I could make up those details, it would probably be about as accurate as if I actually remembered them. But I don’t remember them and so only the half fiction of my memory is real enough to tell.

By John Bobst (who also writes at his own website)

Read Full Post »

Loma Prieta

I worked at Kmart on 41st Ave and was scheduled to work 2pm to 10 pm. I was going through a divorce and was out apartment hunting earlier and went to work to make calls from there. At around 4 pm, my first break, I called a rental and spoke to a older man. It appears that he knows one of my managers and because of that verbally rents the apartment to me, over the phone, the sight of me unseen!!

At the 5:03 pm time I was working the front service desk and was able to get under the counter, and gesture to anyone in the area to do the same. I was in work mode first, got all the necesssary keys and made sure all monies were locked up, went outside and regrouped. Later that night and the next day Kmart opened their doors to those in need of blankets, batteries, flashlights, candles and many other items that people in the neighborhood/community might need, that we had to give.

Now, Kmart (that store anyway) sold beer and wine. When our store went about cleaning and categorizing all of the losses you can bet that the crew wrote off just about the entire beer and wine department. Then we had a much needed party with the store crew and all!

PS. My daughter thought the earthquake only happened at our house!

By Phyllis Burke

Read Full Post »

At Preschool in Soquel

I was 5 years old when the earthquake hit. I was at Rocking Horse Ranch Preschool in Soquel when the quake hit. The water tower in the back yard fell over, flooding the yard with water. The chimney fell to the ground. We lost our power, phone and gas. We also had trees and power lines and poles down on the street outside the preschool. My Grandma picked me up and very carefully made her way down from the school. My Grandma’s house suffered damaged windows and a damaged chimney.

By Shaun Saffen

Read Full Post »

A Scotts Valley Quake Story

I was only 7 when it happened but I remember being in Scotts Valley playing soccer. The next thing we knew it felt like the world was coming to an end. My parents were at work and the coach of the soccer team didn’t want us to stay at the field so he took us to his house.

My parents couldn’t find me and they looked everywhere. It took them almost 4 hours to find us but eventually they did. When we finally went back home we arrived at our house and it completely fell off the foundation.

I have two pretty cool videos. The first is one my neighbor took. Since we lived in the woods, our houses were pretty far apart. But my neighbor decided he would check on us to see if we are ok. He came down to the house and in the video everything is silent. He is calling our names and saying “oh my god, oh my god” after he saw that our house fell. He didn’t know if we were in the house or not, dead or alive.

The second is the actual demolition of the house and our time spent living in a mobile home.

My most vivid memory though is the closure of Highway 17. Since we lived on Vine Hill Road we had to show a pass to the Highway Patrol that stated we lived off of 17. They weren’t letting anyone else pass by because the road was pretty smashed up. The crazy part was that 17 was completely empty for weeks. My brother and I used to hop on our bikes and ride down to Scotts Valley. Unless another Earthquake happens, a carless 17 won’t be something you will ever see again.

By Jared Stasch

Read Full Post »

Ode to Santa Cruz

–For Sandy Lydon

You want a sunrise? asks the poet,
I’ll give you a sunrise. Eggplant cirrus clouds,
pinky smoky blue and gray,
pink, moss pink, pink nether flower
sunrise, sunrise
yellow white silicon chip
foghorn, windchime, no-color haze.

Sunrise sunrise
O City of Mystical Arts and Live Soup,
Antique bathhouse, casino
Riva Fish House,

A bus-load of German tourists
applauding (applaudieren!)
the sunrise.
Clam chowder, O scrubbed blue light
melon balls and watermelon shooters,
arcade, pink neon, roller coaster heart-shaped mirror.

KA-BOOM! House begins to dance,
land moves in waves three and four feet high,
weight machines swaying, mirrors rattling,
a sidewalk of broken glass,
a street filled with jewels.
Loma Prieta, The Earthquake of the Dark Hill,
place, this place, always coming back from a disaster.
Natural beauty and unnatural events,
jazz, blues, canoes, tattoos,
I bow and give thanks to the muse,
Santa Cruz, O Santa Cruz!

Robert Sward

With thanks to Santa Cruz Weekly, where “Ode to Santa Cruz” first appeared.

Read Full Post »

Earthquake Wedding, Part 2

This is the second part of the “Earthquake Wedding” story. Read the first part here, covering October 16 through 18.

Thursday, October 19th

We reached the Los Gatos reception hall by phone.  It is definitely out because of severe water damage to the floor.  We begin calling other places and the Campbell Community Center has a large room available. We promise to be there early afternoon,  CASH IN HAND, because we are talking about tomorrow night!  Bob calls Megan about where the kids will stay Friday night after the wedding.  We all agree that coming to Santa Cruz is not going to be easy.  Megan takes care of it, making new arrangements.  The Babbling Brook in Santa Cruz is open but kindly agrees to hold the reservations for a later date.  Bad news about the refrigerator.  The power is on but the vertical jolts jammed the compressor.  It is stuck on defrost!  We returned our neighbors’ food, threw most of ours out and added the refrigerator to the long list of things to be repaired or replaced.

About noon, Bob and I and Annie, the matron of honor, go to Los Gatos (via Hecker Pass) to reserve the place for the reception.  It is wonderful!  Even the walls and carpet are the wedding colors!  Now we go to meet the grandparents who have arrived from Texas.  We show up at their motel, towels in hand pleading for hot shower.  We confirm new arrangements with Greenlees Bakery and all the friends who are helping with the food and decorations.  Besides Greenlees, who initiated calls and checked with us, I should mention by name the Flower Ladies of Scotts Valley who went way beyond the necessary in delivering the flowers, beautiful and in time for photographs.  I think they had to drive north to Half Moon Bay and come over Highway 84 or 92.

The Texas grandparents, bride and groom, parents and matron of honor go out to dinner to relax and get acquainted.  The conversation is evenly divided between wedding and earthquake.  Annie is staying with Juli so Bob and I drive home, Highway 9, I think.

Friday, October 20th

The grandparents make a decision to return to Texas on Sunday.  They will come back later for an extended visit.  Too many aftershocks.  The hotel in Aptos is delighted to have the room released for displaced people.

Each of us from the Santa Cruz side of the hill drive separately on Highway 9 with our list of errands, (dog to kennel, pick up balloons, pick up arch, pick up ice cream, pick up, etc. etc.).  Only George Bush (41) slowed us down.  He was flying by helicopter from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz and the highway through Scotts Valley was closed for awhile.  Wish I’d had a helicopter and crew.  It would have been a big help.

So many friends helped with food – a delicious desert buffet – and decorations – lace and balloons and twinkly lights.  We were prepared with flashlights in case of power failure but the wedding came off beautifully – a lovely “Cinderella” type of affair.  Afterward there was good food, good music, good friends and good feelings.  The women were right to go ahead in spite of the earthquake.  Even now friends thank us for having that happy time to relax and rejoice between repairs and rebuilding.

Saturday, October 21st

We each came home via our “favorite” path – highway 152 or 129.  We were a few days behind our neighbors in earthquake emotions but we were ready to catch up, pick up and help out.  As I walked in the door carrying the cake top in a tin box along with a lot of other stuff, somehow things became unbalanced and the cake tin landed upside down on the floor.  Everything else in the house was still upside down so it seemed a fitting end for the “Earthquake Wedding” of 1989.

In 2009, we remembered the earthquake as we celebrated the 20th Wedding Anniversary of Juli and Eric.

By Kathleen Vallerga (click here to go to part 1)

Read Full Post »

Earthquake Wedding

In October of 1989 my husband Robert and I lived with a dog and a cat on the eastern edge of the Forest of Nisene Marks about three miles from the town of Aptos, California and about one and a half miles from the epicenter of the October 17th earthquake.  Our son, Paul, lived in Cupertino.  One daughter, Anne, and our son-in-law, Todd, lived in Capitola and our other daughter, Juli, lived in Los Gatos and was engaged to be married to Eric in Los Gatos on October 20, 1989.  This is an account of events from October 16th to 20th, 1989 [part two's available here, covering the 19th and the wedding itself on the 20th].

Monday, October 16th

I talked to Juli (the bride to be).  It’s only four days to the wedding and she’s in bed with the flu – sick and dizzy.  She has to work Tuesday to train a replacement so I hope it’s only a 24 hour virus.  I’m feeling that last week before a wedding stress.

Tuesday, October 17th

5:00 PM.  The world series pregame show is on TV while I start to get ready for an evening meeting after a day of last minute wedding details.

5:04 PM.  In 15 seconds our house moved 4 feet north and 18 inches vertically in several sharp jerks.  As I crouched in the bathroom doorway and held the dog, I was thrown sideways several times.  I don’t remember seeing much except the dog in my lap but I was conscious of a lot of noise and furniture falling over and objects crashing and breaking.  The glass shower doors fell beside me but did not break.  Like everyone’s, our house looked like it had gone through a giant blender.  I got up, put out a fire in the wood-burning stove (it had moved a foot to the right), turned on a battery radio and went outside to check on the neighbors.  Dust and debris were suspended in the air.  There was a strong smell of propane and very soon our volunteer firemen were walking the road looking for the source of the leak.  It proved to be a tank that had broken loose and rolled down the hill.

Bob got home from work in San Jose about 6:20, one of the last cars to get onto Hecker Pass Road before it was closed.  At 6:30 the phone rang (a surprise that it was working) and it was our son in Cupertino – all OK.  We called our daughter in Los Gatos and talked to her answering machine.  That meant she had power!  Later we got through to relatives in Texas.  We videoed (using a generator) the damage and then settled in for a fitful night, trying to sleep – too many thoughts going through my head.  Like many, I had a radio plugged into my ear to keep in touch with the world.

Wednesday, October 18th

I talked to Juli.  The earthquake had knocked the flu symptoms to low priority.  She had a difficult night – but had power and friends stayed over.  We made THE major decision – the wedding is on. Most men involved (not the groom) thought that at least the reception should be postponed but all the women felt it best to continue as planned as far as possible.  Everyone would certainly understand if any detail was less than perfect.  The bakery (Greenlees of San Jose) and the flower supplier (the Flower Ladies in Scotts Valley), were operational, very cooperative and supportive.  At home, we make paths through the broken glass, picked up the food off the floor and got ready to leave for the wedding rehearsal.

The power came on about the time we left (around 3:30 PM) but we still had no hot water because of broken pipes to the hot water heater.  Since our refrigerator is now working, we invite the neighbors to put food in out freezer.  A fire is raging in Nisene Marks but it is not headed our way.  The news of the fire so near us upset our son and daughter and they tried to call again but couldn’t get through.  The fire was one thing more than my brain could handle so I didn’t worry about it.  Our neighbor is a volunteer fireman and as we left, we said, “If the wind changes and the fire gets close, please get the dog and the wedding dress.”  As we drove to pick up Annie and Todd, helicopters carrying water from the ocean to the fire were flying over our heads.

The four of us drove sadly through Watsonville – heartbreaking – We had to go south to highway 129 and San Juan road to Highway 101 – back north on 101 to San Jose and Los Gatos to the rehearsal.  Two hours driving instead of the usual 45 minutes over Highway 17!  There was a strong smell of vinegar in Watsonville and even now certain smells remind me of the quake – the vinegar from Watsonville, propane from our road, kerosene and whiskey from our neighbor’s broken containers.

The rehearsal at the Kingdom Hall and the following dinner at the groom’s mother’s house go very well.  Those of us from this side of the hill who have had no electricity are glued to the TV set.  We also gas up our cars on the San Jose side.  No power to pump gas at home!

One problem – and a big one.  The reception is supposed to be at a center in downtown Los Gatos.  We cannot reach the center by phone or even by car because of a broken water main and police barricades.  We are sure the center is damaged but we can’t make other arrangements until we confirm the extent of the damage, the unavailability of the center and the refund of our payment which has been made in full.  Where will we go?  Megan (groom’s mother) is wonderful and offers her home – but 200 people?

We return home via Highway 9.  It takes another 2 hours.  There’s no good way to get from here to there or from there to here!  A second problem – How can Juli and Eric possibly get to a bed and breakfast inn in Santa Cruz Friday night after an evening wedding and reception?  Awaiting us in the mess at home are many messages on our answering machine, some concerned, some interesting, some humorous.

Wednesday night is the most difficult.  I get very little sleep.  I have the radio plug in my ear.  There are four strong aftershocks centered near La Selva Beach.  Our house is gently quivering all night like a cherry on the top of a big bowl of jello.  Finally, after the 4^th shock, the house settled and held and I dozed off.

By Kathleen Vallerga (click here for part 2)

Read Full Post »