I live in the east bay but on October 17, 1989 I decided it would be a great day to visit my sister in Santa Cruz. Her daughter was going to turn 7 on October 19th and I thought it would be fun to go shopping with my sister and get her a birthday gift. I had 4 boys of my own. My husband had the day off from work so he agreed to watch the boys while I drove down to Santa Cruz to go shopping. I didn’t want to make things too hard for my husband so I took my youngest son with me. He was going to turn 3 that November. He was always happy and was easy to take places.
I picked up my sister at her house on the west side of Santa Cruz. I really wanted to go shopping downtown in all the interesting stores that only exist in Santa Cruz. She wanted to go to the Capitola Mall though, so I relented and we went to the mall. I didn’t get to visit my sister a lot but when I did I would normally stay until about 5 PM before I headed for home. On this day her daughter was in daycare and she had agreed to go and help out at the day care center at 3:30. I was vaguely annoyed about this because it didn’t leave us much time for shopping. We left the mall and I drove my sister back home and dropped her off at nearly 3:30.
I decided to head downtown and do a little shopping on my own. Downtown is where I wanted to go in the first place and it might be a while before I would have another chance. I liked to park around the corner and down two blocks from the Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company. I would have time to put my son in his stroller and walk up one side of the street and down the other and then maybe stop for juice and coffee at the Coffee Roasting Company. I was headed downtown and only a few blocks away when I turned around to look at my son. He had his head back, his mouth open and he was SOUND asleep. He was in the kind of sleep little kids go into where it’s a bad idea to wake them up and expect them to be happy about it. I was annoyed and could not decide whether to risk waking him or to just give up on my plans altogether. I really wanted to shop in the downtown area. At the last second I suddenly decided it was too much to ask of a tired 2 year old and I turned and got on the freeway and headed for home.
I had probably been home for 15 or 20 minutes at 5:04. My 4 year old son was in his bedroom in the back of the house having a nap. I thought the rest of them were all out in the front yard. I was in the kitchen doing dishes. The house began to creak terribly and I knew it was an earthquake. I closed the upper cabinet with the dishes but the cabinet door immediately swung back open and hit my hand. I took two steps toward the room where my son was sleeping but the house was shaking so violently now I could not walk and was hanging on to the edge of the sink. I realized I was not going to make it all the way back to his room and there was nothing I could do. I moved over and opened the door going out to the garage so I could stand in the doorway but the water heater was right on the other side and was shaking violently and then the door swung out and back and HIT me pretty hard hurting my arm. I closed the door and wedged myself into the corner of the kitchen by the door. I had a had time deciding if the earthquake had stopped or not. I felt like I was shaking inside and things were still moving. My ceiling fans in my living room were swinging back and forth.
At the worst it had felt like the house was really going to come down on me and my son and there was nothing I could do. Now, it stopped and I could not believe the dishes were still in the cabinets and the china cabinet had not fallen over, in fact, just about everything seemed ok. I rushed back to my son in the back bedroom to find him still sleeping but his aquarium was missing about 4 inches of water and the carpet was soaked. Everybody outside knew we had an earthquake but didn’t think it was as bad as it was. I was sure it must have been centered right under us! I turned on the TV but found we had no power. Then we had power but still no TV. Then within 30 minutes we did have TV and they were showing the Bay Bridge. When they said it was centered closer to Santa Cruz I began calling my sister. All I could get were recordings stating not to use the phone lines. Still, I wanted to know if my sister was OK.
News reports began to state Santa Cruz was the hardest hit and they had no info coming out of Santa Cruz and were flying over it with helicopters. I was very scared my sister and her family might have been hurt. I kept calling. About 10 PM I called again and suddenly she answered, “Hello?” I realized I could not talk but finally was able to say her name. She said “Oh hi, guess what? We had a big earthquake here and I don’t have any power!” I realized she had no idea the magnitude of this earthquake. I began to fill her in and told her to make sure she had batteries and water. It was weeks before we were able to visit my sister again. When we finally were able to go and see her we still had to take highway 9 to get there. Her house had some bad cracks inside and the chimney was cracked. It never did get fixed. She was renting the house.
I think about that day every time there are stories about earthquakes. I remember as clearly as if it were yesterday turning around and seeing my little son so sound asleep in the back seat. I wonder, what if he had been awake? How different that day would have been.
By Nancy in Fremont
P.S. Nancy adds this story about her sister and niece’s experience at day care:
She went to work at the day care place at 3:30 in Santa Cruz. She was still there at 5:04. She was outside at recess with all the kids. Her daughter, who was going to turn 7 on the 19th, was alone in one of the classrooms. Her daughter was a bit of a problem child and had made a mess in the book area of the classroom. The teacher in her room told her she could not come outside until she cleaned it up. She was cleaning it up when the earthquake started. I think the little book area was in a corner of the room. There was a 3 or 4 foot tall book shelf on one wall and a mirror on the other. The mirror and possibly the windows broke and the book shelf fell over on top of my niece. My sister ran to look for her as soon as the earthquake was over and when she ran into the classroom there was her daughter with books on top of her and things broken around her. She was ok but she was crying and said “Mommy! I DID NOT do this!!”
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