The Whittier Narrows Earthquake

They who have not experienced it have no idea how exciting it is to be cruising down a freeway at sixty miles per hour when a six-point earthquake hits. It was as if some whimsical, drunken giant had decided to play basketball and was dribbling my car down the road. The bounces were erratic and uneven, with a twist thrown in here and there for good measure. I had no time to think about what was happening, I simply reacted. My hands automatically turned the steering wheel to adjust for the twists and turns while my foot eased off the gas pedal. I hung on to ride out the bone jarring jolts for what seemed like an eternity. Then it ended, leaving me baffled as to the cause of the bouncing. The most logical explanation seemed to be an earthquake, but this one had lacked the usual sideways shaking.

The other drivers in my vicinity had pulled over. Many of them now stood in the outer lanes. They were looking up and down the road and inspecting their vehicles as if they were seeking some explanation for the event. This told me it had been an earthquake. It also gave me a clear path for the last quarter of a mile into downtown Los Angeles. I have always had this terrible fear of getting caught on or under an overpass when it collapses, and I drove on breathlessly until a finally descended the off ramp onto Seventh Street.

The scene downtown was incredible! Glass from broken windows had rained down onto the sidewalks, and all of the traffic lights were out. Throngs of people were milling around in the streets, forcing drivers to negotiate a path through the dazed crowd. I had already commuted nearly twenty miles at that point. Since none of the buildings seemed to be in imminent danger of collapse I kept going. The radio was now warning people to stay out of the downtown area, but the information it was providing was sketchy. It was too early to know where the quake was centered or the extent of the damage. All I knew was that the streets were snarled. It took almost a half-hour to cover the remaining three miles to my office.

As I approached the parking structure of the complex housing my office I saw that the entrance and exit signs were still lit. I tried my key card. It worked and I entered. The parking structure is laid out in a manner that forces you to park on the fifth floor or higher. You must then take an elevator down to the ground floor and traverse the plaza to another bank of elevators that take you up to the offices. None of the elevators in the parking area were working. I looked up at the huge cement beams running across the ceiling, and I felt anxious. Adding to my anxiety was the deafening noise from what had to be a hundred car alarms. It echoed off the walls in what seemed like and infinite variety of nerve wrenching racket. It was enough to drive a person mad. I raced down the emergency stairs leading to the street to escape it.

A large number of people, many still dressed in bathrobes and bedclothes, surrounded the perimeter of the building. They looked at me in bewilderment as I entered the plaza through a side door. The few people inside the plaza appeared to be Californians who had offices in the building, as opposed to the tourists who had been shaken out their hotel rooms and now stood outside. Experienced Californians expect to see broken glass and displaced merchandise after such a temblor. We do not become concerned about the safety of a building unless we smell gas or see cracked walls or distorted support beams. The building seemed sound in that regard. What was unusual was the water seeping out from the doors of several of the elevators. Someone told us to be patient.

"I should be able get one or two of them running in fifteen or twenty minutes," he said.

I was skeptical. I decided to see if I could get something to eat at the hotel coffee shop while I waited. The coffee shop employees were busy cleaning up the mess, but they did sell me a cup of coffee to go. It then occurred to me that waiting for the repair of an elevator that might get stuck between floors during an aftershock did not make much sense. So I took the coffee with me, and I hiked up the emergency stairs to my office on the eighth floor.

My office was a disaster. Many of the ceiling tiles had fallen, and the contents of files that had been in my bookcase added reams of paper to the litter on the floor. I removed the lid from the cup and took a few sips of coffee while surveying the damage. My secretary must have worked late to finish typing in the changes to an important study I had done. I was pleased to see the final version sitting on my desk. The study had been my most pressing task, and I thought its completion might give me some time to put my office back in order. My bladder was now sending me an unmistakable message. I set the coffee cup down on my desk, and I trudged off to the men's room.

I was standing in front of the urinal when a powerful aftershock struck. The lights went out, and I am certain I must have given the wall one hell of a paint job as I struggled to stay on my feet. The after shock and I finished at about the same time. I cannot begin to tell you the gratitude I felt when I lit my cigarette lighter and glanced down at my miraculously dry shoes. Unfortunately, this feeling of gratitude was replaced by apprehension the instant I stepped out into the hallway. The closed doors of the outer offices prevented any light from filtering in, and the sealed windows and lack of vents made the air deathly still in the absence of a functioning climate control system. It was so quiet I could actually hear my footsteps on the soft carpet as I walked to my office. Furthermore, the heat from my cigarette lighter was beginning to burn my hand. I put the flame out and stood in the doorway of my office for a few moments as I waited for the lighter to cool down.

When I lit the lighter again I discovered that the aftershock had tipped over the coffee cup. My study was soaked. I administered paper towels and did my best to clean it up in the dim light provided by the small flame. It was the last task I performed before the tomb like atmosphere drove me out of the building.

I had just entered my office on the following day when I received a call from my boss over the intercom. He told me he had to catch a plane for Chicago within the hour, and he said he wanted to present my study at a meeting when he arrived there. I tried to tell him the study was covered with brown blotches and was barely legible, but he insisted on having it immediately. "Very well," I concluded. "If he wants it that bad, he shall have it." I took it to his secretary, borrowed a red pen from her and wrote on the top of the first page:

"The shabby condition of this document is a direct result of the earthquake that devastated the office I was in. And that ain't coffee!"

He has since informed me that the notation was a big hit which saved a lot of explaining on his part. We may be battered but we are not dead. Life goes on.

First published in macsbackporch.blogspot.com on Feb. 19, 2009