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Trusted Contributor
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Registered: ‎10-21-2014

Re: West Coast friends: worried!

@shoekitty Santa Cruz Ford's was essentially rubble after the earthquake. Somewhere I have pictures I took when they were knocking down  the walls. Watsonville store re-opened for a while. I used to shop in both stores, but mostly during sales. Mostly their mechandise cost more than I could afford. I did sometimes splurge on Borghese makeup.

 

Yeah there's a certain sound or vibration that you don't forget. A year or two after the quake our staff went out of town to a conference. At lunch time we heard it and literally everyone from our office jumped. All the other attendees sat there looking at us trying to figure out what happened. Another time I went to use the bathroom in the Los Gatos Library. It was down in the basement, small and dimly lit. On the other side of the wall was some sort of motor. Let me tell you, I could hardly stay in there long enought to do what I needed to do. So, yeah, worst part was the aftershocks.

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Re: West Coast friends: worried!

Thank you for the link, @juperier.  I had no clue. I only moved here about 18 months ago. When I asked my family about damage, I guess they were being literal and just mentioned the house/property and didn't mention anything else.

 

I was amazed at what they said happened in Moss Landing - one of my favorite spots. And even though I think it (the bridge) looks slightly different, I can tell where it was/is now. I'm often in Watsonville as well. Gilroy, not as much.

Life without Mexican food is no life at all
Trusted Contributor
Posts: 1,328
Registered: ‎10-21-2014

Re: West Coast friends: worried!

@Moonchilde As someone mentioned, earthquake damage can vary widely. While my apartment was a mess when I got home (as in broken potted plants mixed with cassette tapes in my living room, my vcr literally hanging by it's cords and broken dishes in the kitchen), the only damage to the complex structurally was one stairway that disconnected from the side of one building and several cracks in the cement. All the destruction you see downtown is just slightly over a mile away. Actually, the building that collapsed and killed two people is less than a mile away.

 

Where I worked we had complained enough that they had anchored the file cabinets only shortly before. So it was only the contents that ended up on the floor. The buildings were fine. We did have a nice long break tho while they cleaned up asbestos which was no longer sealed in. Remember, where I worked is within a couple of miles of the epicenter. So much depends on the construction of the building and the composition of the soil beneath it.

 

Honestly, I don't recall hearing much about Moss Landing at the time. It's probably due  to the fact that by the time I had power again even the local coverage was much more like what was being shown by the networks....carefully chosen to have the most impact.

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Posts: 18,504
Registered: ‎05-23-2010

Re: West Coast friends: worried!


@juperier wrote:

@shoekitty Santa Cruz Ford's was essentially rubble after the earthquake. Somewhere I have pictures I took when they were knocking down  the walls. Watsonville store re-opened for a while. I used to shop in both stores, but mostly during sales. Mostly their mechandise cost more than I could afford. I did sometimes splurge on Borghese makeup.

 

Yeah there's a certain sound or vibration that you don't forget. A year or two after the quake our staff went out of town to a conference. At lunch time we heard it and literally everyone from our office jumped. All the other attendees sat there looking at us trying to figure out what happened. Another time I went to use the bathroom in the Los Gatos Library. It was down in the basement, small and dimly lit. On the other side of the wall was some sort of motor. Let me tell you, I could hardly stay in there long enought to do what I needed to do. So, yeah, worst part was the aftershocks.


 

 

 

@juperier

This reminds me of what they told me happened where I worked, during the time of the Northridge quake. The room where several people worked was full of 6 foot tall metal cabinets housing drawers packed full of glass slides - which means heavy. When the quake hit, all the drawers popped open, some of the cabinets tipped over, and the glass slides went everywhere. They were cleaning up broken glass for days. Because of that, the metal cabinets are now bolted to the walls so they can't fall.

 

Laboratories are always in the hospital basements. Like Medical Records, we were the mushrooms - we never saw daylight. We used to joke that if there was a huge quake in the new hospital, since we were at the bottom everything would pancake and we'd never get out.

 

Photos so you can picture the hurt all those broken slides could have done.

 

IMG_1274.JPGIMG_1273.JPG

Life without Mexican food is no life at all
Trusted Contributor
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Registered: ‎10-21-2014

Re: West Coast friends: worried!

@Moonchilde I would NOT want to be involved in cleaning up that mess! It's amazing how much force a natural distaster can exert. There's a reason why you're always supposed to anchor tall bookcases to the wall and store the bulk of the weight towards the bottom. It's also important that heavy objects are anchored securely to the studs in the wall, not just the sheetrock. It doesn't take an earthquake for poorly anchored shelving to literally fall off the wall. Ask my how I know...

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Registered: ‎03-10-2010

Re: West Coast friends: worried!


@juperier wrote:

@Moonchilde I would NOT want to be involved in cleaning up that mess! It's amazing how much force a natural distaster can exert. There's a reason why you're always supposed to anchor tall bookcases to the wall and store the bulk of the weight towards the bottom. It's also important that heavy objects are anchored securely to the studs in the wall, not just the sheetrock. It doesn't take an earthquake for poorly anchored shelving to literally fall off the wall. Ask my how I know...


Shoekitty said

 

my daughter at the time worked at a lab in Los gatos.  I was watching her daughter, my 3 month old granddaughter.  She left our home in route to los gatos when the quake happened.  She said  the car was a little hard to steer for a moment.  She thought something had happened to car because it was going up and down.  She pulled over, then all seemed okay.  When she approached 87, near Almaden she said she had the eeriest feeling.  It was like all of a sudden there was no one, it was so quiet.  Lights were blinking, and many were off.  Then she heard the news on radio.  When she got to lab, it was blocked off, she could not enter.  Everything was smashed to bits.  Blood, urine, slides, microscopes, the equipment was all destroyed.  The smell w as awful.  Later hazmat team arrived, but she went home before that.  The lab was closed so long, she had to find another job.  

Remember, this all happened before cell phones were common.  We certainly didn't have any!!!  Just the old landline. No internet, computers and many of the conveniences we have now. Getting hold of family was hard.  Most phones didn't work.  Power was cut off to so many as well.