I Feel The Earth Move

When you move to California people say that you should be prepared for an earthquake. I am one of those people that say politely “Yes! You are right, I shall be prepared should one occur. I will get myself a survival kit and read up what to do”. In reality though I am not really planning to do any of this and instead I am mulling over what I would like for my tea that night. It’s not that I’m being rude (well, I am a little, but not intentionally) it’s just that I can never really visualize a real earthquake happening when I am present. I always miss big things, whether natural disasters or big horrible events. This is a good thing, don’t get me wrong but surely there was as much chance of little old me being in an earthquake as there is Spurs finishing in the top four?

It was thus very begrudgingly that I took out earthquake insurance when we got our little bungalow out here. Once again I pondered to myself that it was a waste of money. The sensible part of me won though in the end and we got the insurance. Actually this is a bit of a lie. Emma told me that we had to get the insurance and that I was being a tight arse. She was right and we now pay something like sixty dollars a quarter in case of earthquake damage.

I am getting off the point though dear reader by talking about insurance. I now need to paint you a scene. This is where the exciting part of the blog occurs. So, it was mid morning and I was busy as a lot of bees making a really big order of honey. I was working on a marketing plan for one of our top new shows and I was thinking dead hard, so much so that my brain was actually throbbing a bit. Then all of a sudden I thought I had ruptured the aforementioned brain as the room started to shake a bit. I then had the idea that somebody was jumping up and down on the ceiling of my office. I was just about to bang the ceiling and shout “What the blazes are you doing? I have a marketing report to work on” when I noticed that actually the whole office was shaking from side to side. My mind then went blank. This is not the first time this has happened, but when I regained my composure I thought “What in the blazes is going on? Is it the end of the world?”

It then dawned on me that I was living in California and this was a ruddy earthquake. At this point I got quite scared because surely they didn’t last this long? This earthquake had been going on for a minute at least (it was a rolling one I later found out). The building I was in was very visably swaying from side to side and it showed no sign of stopping. Eventually though it came to an end (of course it did, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this). I looked at my hands and they were covered in sweat and I had gone white. I walked out my office to see my colleagues hid under their desks. I think that is what I was meant to do rather than just sit there being all confused.

They all came out from their hiding places and everyone asked me if I was ok. They realized I was an earthquake virgin and could see I was concerned. I was quite touched by the American's being concerned for their engish cousins. Someone tried to hug me but I explained I was sweating a bit with fear and that I wouldn't if I was them. Our intern Colin is from the East Coast, and he too had never had an Earthquake moment before. We talked about it like excited schoolboys now we were less scared, but more excited. I was told that the quake measured 5.8. This means that it’s a big old one, but luckily not big enough to kill people and stuff.

I rung Emma as she was at home by herself. Luckily she wasn’t too shaken by it, and like me she hadn’t realized that it was an earthquake for a while. When she did she stood in a doorway as someone told us that this was a safe place. We have since found out that in fact you shouldn’t do this but instead you should go under a table or something. For purposes of the reconstruction photos that you can see above and to the side Emma is indeed under a table. This though is poetic license but it made for a better picture than her being stood under a doorway.

I asked if there had been any damage. Emma said that some things had fallen over but luckily nothing had broken. I was a bit annoyed about this as I had earthquake insurance (as you all well know from the opening couple of paragraphs) and I would like to have claimed on it. This wasn’t to be.

Hopefully in the rest of our time here we won’t get a bigger one. It made the news and everything (and even got reported back home) but we all lived. This quake was certainly powerful enough to show nature’s force and all that jazz so it was enough. I really don’t want to experience what the locals call the ‘big one’. This would see the whole city destroyed and LA would come to a standstill. David Crabtree at work says this will deffo happen by 2012 and LA will be a bit like a post apocolyptic world. If I am here when this happens I will loot a machine gun I think and become a bit like The Terminator in order to get back home.

Until next time….

Marc x