A major earthquake will hit San Francisco within 30 years!

Funny, I remember hearing that when I moved there 29 years ago.

Not that I doubt it—if you live in a seismically active area, seismic activity is pretty much guaranteed. And I suppose the ‘89 quake* could be considered major…although it fell far short of movie-of-the-week levels of catastrophe.

(Note to self: Younger readers will not get the “movie of the week” reference. Major networks stopped showing movies around the same time you stored your Betamax in the closet.)

(Note to self: Younger readers have no idea what a Betamax is.)

But reports like this are akin to saying “Major storms expected to hit Florida this decade!” It’s pretty much a given. And even if you have 10 mild hurricane seasons in a row, just watch out for #11.

*I missed the actual quake part of the ‘89 quake. I was sailing to Drake’s Bay in Marin with some friends. It was such a calm day that we motored most of the way—unusual in a place where winds are usually so strong that gripping the steering wheel to keep my van in the lane was a common occurrence. It was also unusual in that we actually sunbathed, as opposed to our usual sailing attire of 27 layers of Land’s End gear. The seas were calmer than the land that day.

We heard about the quake with the rest of America—tuning in to the World Series, the A’s vs. the Giants at Candlestick. We thought something was wrong with the radio at first, because we couldn’t get the game. Once we did, and it slowly dawned on us what had happened, we opened a fine bottle of Merlot and celebrated.

We weren’t celebrating that we’d missed death and injury and panic. We all worked in local TV news (the boat itself was called “Good News”). We were celebrating that we were not at work and would not be sequestered into working non-stop for the next 36 hours doing round-the-clock coverage.

Share on Facebook