Today (or tomorrow?) is the 100th anniversary of the Great San Francisco Earthquake that destroyed that city in 1906 (lower picture). I remember hearing that the hills around the University of California at Santa Cruz, 60 miles to the south, were bare of redwoods because they had been cut down to rebuild San Francisco. Could this be true? In any case it must have been a truly traumatic event for the whole region.
Santa Cruz too was hit hard by its own earthquake in 1989. I lived there then, but at the time I was in Bali, Indonesia. At about the exact time of the earthquake, it was nighttime in Bali and I had a vivid dream that my family was gathered in a room and being shaken by an earthquake. It literally shook me awake. I asked Lynne, my partner at the time, "Did you feel that earthquake?" She said no, what earthquake? The whole morning of the next day, I asked everyone I met, "Did you feel that earthquake last night?" and everyone said no, what earthquake? Then we ran into somebody who told us that an earthquake had leveled San Francisco and "thousands were dead." We saw a piece of news coverage on Indonesian TV, which we couldn't understand, but the images of burning, collapsed houses and freeways let us know it was really bad. Just thinking of all my relatives and friends who lived in San Francisco sort of just stunned me. I wasn't sure if they were alive or dead, but judging from the pictures we saw, I was pretty sure they couldn't have made it. It wasn't until a couple of days later that we heard the earthquake was actually centred in Santa Cruz. Then we really freaked. If it was that bad in San Francisco and it wasn't even centred there, imagine what our home looked like! We tried to call home, but there was no phone service. We spent a terrible two weeks waiting to hear what really happened, which was bad enough, but not quite as bad as we imagined.
One real casualty of the Santa Cruz earthquake was the downtown strip along Pacific Ave. I'm not sure, but it seemed a majority of the buildings were effected and many had to be torn down in the weeks after the quake. One of saddest losses was the Cooper House (pictured at the top, and then when it was being torn down). The Cooper House was one of the most joyful places in the city on a sunny day. Everyone would sit outside in its patio, then had a great Latin-influenced house jazz band that played outside. The leader was an older man, a William Everson look-a-like, who played the vibes, with a conga player, sax, and keys. There was a great spirit woman who danced out on the sidewalk, fully decked out in fantastic, flowing, rainbow clothes.
The only thing that ever surpassed the utter loss I felt reading my Mom's note: "They are tearing the Cooper House down today."---was about 12 years later on September 11 when a collegue came into the meeting I was in and said, pretty casually, "You know, those big buildings in New York? Well one just fell down." A dream of similar images had also kept me up the night before.
If I had know all this would be gone, I would have taken the time to enjoy things more than I did. Just goes to show you. Watch out, cause you never know what's right around the corner.
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