At 1:15 P.M. on Tuesday, April 24, 1984, I was enjoying lunch with a colleague in the main dining room, just off the lobby at the Red Lion Hotel in San José. We were sitting at a table directly below a large glass dome. It was at that moment that an earthquake of Richter magnitude 6.2 struck near Mount Hamilton, about ten miles east of San José. There was no question from the outset that it was a significant temblor. My colleague literally freaked out, bolted from the table, and ran out the restaurant door. I quickly looked up and realized that she had the right idea.
At 5:04 P.M. on Tuesday, October 17, 1989, I was in our living room at home watching the beginning of Game 3 of the World Series telecast between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A’s. It was at that moment that a magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Loma Prieta Peak, about twenty miles south of our home in San José. Again, there was no question about the severity of this temblor. A six-foot tall bookshelf in our master bedroom crashed to the floor. Some of the Waterford crystal glasses in our China cabinet got knocked over and broke. Other than that, the only consequence we experienced in our family was a severe case of frayed nerves.
The past 33 years have been relatively quiet here in Santa Clara County. We’ve had a few minor quakes which caught our attention, and there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of temblors which were so small they were not noticed by the general public. That streak of peacefulness ended this morning.
At 11:42 A.M. today, Tuesday, October 25, 2022, (Hmmm… I see a pattern here.) a 5.1 quake jolted the South Bay. The epicenter was similar to the 1984 temblor — about twelve miles east of San José, not far from Mount Hamilton. My oldest son, Tom, is Principal at Morrill Middle School on the northeast side of San José. Everyone felt it, and evacuated the school as a precaution. My middle son, Steve, teaches at Most Holy Trinity School in east San José. Steve said the quake rocked the school building, causing students and teachers to drop, cover, and hold. When it was safe to do so, they, too, evacuated the building. Fortunately, there were no injuries and no damage at either location.
Kathy and I had just picked up our granddaughter, Penny, at her preschool in Saratoga. We, along with Penny’s little sister, Scarlett, were in the car driving back to our home. We didn’t feel anything. We were alerted to the quake when Steve called us to make certain that his girls were safe. There were a few aftershocks throughout the afternoon, but all of lesser magnitude. We didn’t feel any of those, either.
People living in the South deal with hurricanes and tornadoes. Midwest residents cope with tornadoes and frigid temperatures. The East Coast gets hit with brutal Nor’easters from time to time. And California, well, we experience occasional earthquakes. The damages from these natural disasters depend, of course, on the severity of the event. As a native Californian, I am well aware of the potential danger of a major earthquake. The music group Shango reminded us of this in their 1969 hit song Day After Day. (Click to hear the song.)
So yes, I’m grateful, tremendously grateful, to have reached the age of 68 with only two nerve-rattling earthquakes under my belt. (I don’t consider today’s temblor to be one of those.) Will “the big one” hit us some day? Geologists predict that it will. I hope to be visiting Ireland if and when it does.
