Does anybody else out there still have a t-shirt like this? It says I survived Earthquake 89, Santa Cruz, October 17, 1989, 5:04 PM, 7.1 The shirt came out before the magnitude was downgraded to 6.9. Id just ridden my bike home from work (through downtown) and was sitting on my porch with my 2-year-old in my lap. My wife (then partner) was inside with our 6-year-old and a 5-year-old friend. We went for doorframes as I watched our car bounce up and down in the driveway, telephone poles sway. Inside, everything on shelves landed on the floor. The kids play area, where theyd been when Id arrived, was buried in books, records, stereo, turntable and speakers. I ventured inside (barefoot) to retrieve a transistor radio for news and stepped on glass. I definitely needed stitches, but there was no way I was going to go to the emergency room right after a major earthquake, so a neighbor who was a nurse bound it tightly for me. For two nights we camped out in the backyard with all our neighbors who didnt have yards, barbecued thawing meat from the freezer and gathered scraps of news, waiting for the officials to come declare our rental safe. It was safe, just lots of cracks, but as soon as one of the highways opened up, we got ourselves up to Eugene, Oregon, where weve lived ever since.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 17:31:25 +0000