Local News and Lack of Local News

Last night I was wiped out and actually hit the pillow by 7:00. I awoke at 11:00 and turned on the TV to see what was happening in the world while I was out for four hours. Four hours in a row is a long snap for me, when it comes to sleeping. Anyhow, I hear the tail end of a tsunami warning on CNN and think, Oh crap, where the hell was that? I let it go thinking I will hear more later. I fell back asleep, on the couch this time, and awake for the end of the tsunami story on CNN again. I got up at 4:00, turned on yesterday's AMC from Tivo and decide to see if I can fall asleep again or if I should hit the on switch for the coffee. I fell back to sleep for an hour. Finally up at 5:00, I went straight to the computer to see if CNN had anything on the tsunami. Well, they did and I see the tsunami warning was for us here on the West Coast from the Mexican border to BC. Now cancelled. Apparently, the quake was not the kind that can cause a tsunami.

I was not surprised that such a large earthquake hit last night near Crescent City in Northern California. 7.0 is a big earthquake. Even if I were awake, I wouldn't have felt it down her in OC, Southern California. But I was out of the loop and that is scary. Mental note, perhaps fear of missing something is the root of my insomnia! Hmm.

I mentioned it to my husband this morning, he said, "I told you that last night." I didn't remember. And I missed all the calls from friends, who called to make sure we knew about the tsunami warning. Katharine was upset by her friends calls. My husband reassured her that we are a 1000' up and would be fine. If there were a tsunami, I suppose it could have possibly hit Main Beach, which is pretty flat.

I went to the local paper site online and there is a headline about Phil Jackson coming back to coach the Lakers...Off to the side is a small article with the headline, 7.0 quake brings tsunami warning....What is wrong with this picture? A tsunami for the first time since 1964 and it affects all of the coast and it gets a measly little side story!

On Saturday we had a micro quake. What was strange was that I didn't know definitively that it was an earthquake. I have lived here my entire life and I have always known when I was in an earthquake. I heard a large window rattle and the china cabinet glass rattle. I thought somebody was in the neighbor's yard. I saw nobody when I looked. Then the whole house shook and a loud boom sound. I told my daughter Zoe, "Okay, let's go." Taking her to solid ground, she asked me what that was. I told her, "I think it was an earthquake." It felt different, no swaying back and forth. I even thought it could have been a mighty eucalyptus branch falling on the house. We do live in a grove of eucs. The frightening part was that when it hit, I was reading an article about Bluebird Canyon where the landslide was a couple of weeks back. In the article I read, that geologists said the ground is still moving there. So, I began to wonder if our house was sliding too. No news, we checked. Nothing on line either. I thought, I must be crazy, but my daughter was with me and heard and felt it too. Finally, I see my friend Jana online and call her. "Yes" says Jana, "I felt it too." Thank God it was confirmed by somebody! Then comes a Caltech report to my email. 5.6 earthquake near Palm Springs. Then the local news finally found talking heads to come on the air and talk about the earthquake. That is a problem on weekends. No local news. Must be no news on the weekends. If it were a weekday, the talking heads would have been on the air instantly and for hours.

At the fold of the paper is an awesome photo that I wish I could upload for you all to see. It is a photo taken from the air and shows hundreds of surfers on their boards. Another photo shows surfers holding hands in a huge circle. The event is called a paddle-out. They were paying tribute to Dale Velzy who helped create the surf industry. He was the first to open a surfboard shop in 1950. Other firsts include, making surfboards maneuverable, first to put a logo on a surfboard and to put a shop name on a T-shirt and first to sponsor a surfer. Dale Velzy was 77 when he died.