4.4 L.A. earthquake a wake-up call for residents to prepare
March 17, 2014, 2:12 p.m.
The magnitude 4.4 earthquake that struck near Westwood early Monday was a "rude awakening" for Angelenos who remain vulnerable to being caught unprepared by a major temblor, Mayor Eric Garcetti said.
The earthquake that struck in Sherman Oaks at 6:25 a.m. was the most significant shake in Southern California since a 5.5-earthquake hit Chino Hills in 2008. It was followed up by seven smaller temblors, with two registering as magnitude 2.5 or greater, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
RELATED: Where exactly was the L.A. earthquake?
The temblor struck roughly one month after Garcetti announced plans to, for the first time, partner with the U.S. Geological Survey to better protect private buildings as well as telecommunications and water supplies during a major quake.
"Today's earthquake is a reminder that every L.A. family must be prepared with food, water and other essentials, as well as a plan," Garcetti said in a statement Monday. "While it appears the greatest impact of this temblor was a rude awakening, we are executing our post-earthquake protocols to survey our neighborhoods and critical infrastructure."
With no reports of injuries or significant damage Monday, officials seized on the quake to remind residents to be prepared for a major seismic event.
The quake struck the northern edge of the Santa Monica Mountains, an area that has not seen much recent seismological activity.
Jennifer Graham, a 37-year-old teacher from Venice, was at her boyfriend's home in Sherman Oaks when the earthquake struck.
"I've been through a lot of earthquakes, this one felt just more violent," she said.
RELATED: Shaking, jolted nerves reported across wide area
As she walked her boyfriend's labradoodle, she said Monday's quake reminded her to double-check the house's water and food supply in case a bigger, more damaging quake hit.
"It makes me ask questions," she said. "Being ready is the intelligent thing to do, but you get so busy, you don't really think about it. This is a good reminder."
At the home of Debbie Seidel, a 42-year-old mother of two, there was a fallen mirror resting on a chest that managed not to shatter, and her daughter's shoe rack had come unhinged and was spilling items to the ground.
Their house is located at the estimated epicenter of the quake.
"It was fast and hard," she said. "You felt that it was close. It was intense, but super short."
She said her family of four will likely talk about the quake over dinner. Despite being born and raised in California, she said when this quake hit, she wasn't sure what to do.
The family has a metal bin full of items in case of an earthquake, but Seidel said she wasn't sure what was in it anymore, or if she could even open the lid.
"You've got to stay on top of it," Seidel said.
Even more so if Monday's magnitude 4.4 temblor marks the beginning of the end of L.A.'s years-long "earthquake drought."
Typically, seismologists would expect a 4.4-sized earthquake about once a year in the Los Angeles Basin, but that hasn't happened for years.
“We don’t know if this is the end of the earthquake drought we’ve had over the last few years, and we won’t know for many months,” said Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson.
Significant earthquakes were far more common in the Los Angeles Basin in the 1980s and 1990s, when the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake, the 1991 Sierra Madre earthquake, and the 1994 Northridge earthquake occurred.
Monday’s quake is a reminder of the larger seismic forces that have shaped Southern California, as the Pacific tectonic plate underneath Los Angeles is grinding up north against the North American plate, northeast of the San Gabriel Mountains.
Past earthquakes since ancient times are the reasons why Southern California has mountains; quakes pushed up the Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains.
Nancy King, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said Monday that she hoped the most recent jolt could be used as a teachable moment.
"We live in earthquake country and we can expect earthquakes frequently and the big one, one day," she said. "We don’t know when that one’s coming.”
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Earthquake preparedness for bookish types: Reading
| After the 4.4 earthquake, Los Angeles Metro Red Line subway was delayed but got running again in time for the Monday morning commute. (Marc Martin / Los Angeles Times / March 17, 2014) |
March 17, 2014
Many Angelenos were shaken awake at 6:25 a.m. Monday by a 4.4 magnitude earthquake centered north of Westwood. As earthquakes go, it wasn't really so bad: As of this writing, no major damage or injuries have been reported, water and power systems seem to be intact across the city, and, well, it was time to get up anyway.
It was literally a wake-up call for earthquake preparedness. We're all supposed to have earthquake kits stocked with water and canned goods and first-aid supplies, just in case.
Another way to prepare is to read up. Leaving the technical survival planning to the experts, we have some recommendations of nonfiction that asks as many questions as it answers, and fiction that incorporates earthquakes as drama and humor.
L.A. EARTHQUAKE: 4.4-magnitude temblor hits near Westwood
One of the best books about the cognitive dissonance of living in Los Angeles, a city built in an earthquake zone, is "The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith" by Los Angeles Times book critic David L. Ulin.
Part research, part essay, Ulin explores the city and its underpinnings. He writes: "The first time I ever came [to Hollywood], I was stunned by this, by the way the reality so contradicted the illusion, the way the neighborhood -- the streets, the people, the very atmosphere -- was so completely antithetical to the myth. This, of course, is the story of Los Angeles, of California, the story of earthquakes and seismicity, as well. Everywhere I turn, there are overlays and underlays, narratives and threads and bits of inference, adding up to a chaotic landscape in which the deeper I look, the more complex all these interactions seem.... I considered again the leap of faith required to lay down roots in a seismic region, the way we must come to terms with our doubts, our fears, our most awful divinations, if we are to get on with the business of living at all."
FULL COVERAGE: Southern California earthquakes
Ulin, of course, is a colleague whose writing often appears here, and he has previously shared with us some of his favorite writing about earthquakes. Here is what he had to say about those specifically about Los Angeles:
Set in the late 1960s, in Hollywood, Rudolph Wurlitzer's 1974 novel "Quake" is a phantasmagoria that unfolds across the landscape of a broken city, in which narrative, never solid to begin with, has deserted the survivors of a massive earthquake. "It’s going to be a long day," one man says to another amidst the wreckage of the Tropicana Motel. "But if we’re not dead now we probably won’t be. I’m hemorrhaging or something. I’ll wait here. You forget me and I’ll come after you. Everything is in my wallet. Room six. I got credit cards."
In the 1939 novel "Ask the Dust" by John Fante, generally regarded as a cornerstone of the Southern California literary canon, Fante describes the struggles of a young man named Arturo Bandini, based directly on himself. In one particularly memorable set piece, Bandini survives the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, which he interprets as divine retribution for his sins. "You did it, Arturo," he reflects. "This is the wrath of God. You did it.... Repent, repent before it’s too late. I said a prayer but it was dust in my mouth. No prayers. But there would be some changes made in my life. There would be decency and gentleness from now on. This was the turning point."
Carey McWilliams wrote the essay "The Folklore of Earthquakes" in response to the Long Beach earthquake. It is a clear-eyed guide to what we might call earthquake myths and the powerful terror the shaking provokes. "On the basis of their reaction to the word earthquake,” he writes, "Californians can be divided into three classes: first, the innocent late arrivals who have never felt an earthquake but who go about avowing to all and sundry that 'it must be fun'; next, those who have experienced a slight quake and should know better, but who none the less persist in propagating the fable that the San Francisco quake of 1906 was the only major upheaval the State has ever suffered; and, lastly, the victims of a real earthquake -- for example, the residents of San Francisco, Santa Barbara, or, more recently, Long Beach. To these last, the word is full of terror. They are supersensitive to the slightest rattles and jars, and move uneasily whenever a heavy truck passes along the highway."
Published in 1933, Myron Brinig's novel "The Flutter of an Eyelid" is the great modernist fantasy of Los Angeles (every city needs one), although it is essentially unread today. The book ends with a massive earthquake, in which the entire state of California breaks off from North America and crumbles into the Pacific, "Los Angeles toboggan[ing] with almost one continuous movement into the water, the shore cities going first, followed by the inland communities; the business streets, the buildings, the motion picture studios in Hollywood where actors became stark and pallid under their mustard-colored makeup."
In his 1990 monologue "Monster in a Box," Spalding Gray uses seismicity as a way to poke fun at Los Angeles and the city's much-criticized lack of street life, after he has come here from New York to work on a film. '[T]he whole neighborhood is buzzing," he tells us, describing the aftermath of an earthquake. "There’s a whole grapevine of conversation. Suddenly everyone is out there, talking. They’re all talking, talking, talking about the earthquake.... Then everyone stopped talking about the earthquake and went back to talking about their film scripts."
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