35 years ago: It was the Battle of the Bay, SF Giants vs Oakland As, when at 5:04pm for 15 seconds the Bay Area was rock n rolled with a large earthquake measured at 6.9. Every year, we all ask "where were you?" And we recall all the horrible details.
It was devastating to the Bay Bridge, and the double deck Nimitz freeway collapsed. There were many deaths and thousands of injuries. Buildings damaged, roads closed, and experts say it cost $6 billion for repairs.
Where was I? I was at Stanford medical center in Palo Alto, in the basement for some radiation treatments. Because of the quake, they had to recalibrate all the machines, so I was sent home. It was scary to ride through the aftershocks, and even worse to be driving home when there could be more aftershocks.
In what was normally a 20 minute drive to Stanford, the drive home took 90 minutes. Parts of highway 280 was broken or shifted. Everyone drove slow, because the next dark spot on the road could be a drop off! My kids were both at my mom's, they weren't as affected that far south.
My second floor apartment had things that fell off shelves, pictures fell off the wall, but the building seemed to be intact.
Breathlessly, we watched the news for bits of information. Power was out all over the entire area, but my boyfriend had a generator. We spent all night glued to the TV, watching for more news.
Power was restored and life seemed normal again by the next day, but the news and photos of all the damaged areas was shocking. You can see much of the story on YouTube search CNN Shaken. I've just watched it again because its 35 years ago, and still gives me shivers.
What was shocking is 5 years later, in 1994, we were on a Disneyland vacation with our kids when the Northridge earthquake happened. We were shaken out of bed at 4:30am; we turned on the news and because of freeway damages, drove the very long way home.
I'm not a fan of earthquakes!!
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