The Small Shakes Should Remind Us That A Big Shake Is One The Way

Ah, the earth shook twice in less than 24 hours, bringing to mind yet again that I have no plan, no kit, no earthly idea what I’m going to do when (not if) a quake of significant proportions strikes again. It’s one of the places my twisted little brain likes to go in the dead of night, when I can’t sleep – I imagine myself wandering through a quake-devastated landscape, shoeless, lost and alone. All because I didn’t have a plan. I didn’t have a kit.

There are those among us who are good with this planning ahead thing. People who know when they close their eyes at night that they have a strategically located disaster kit nearby, that they have a predetermined meeting place worked out with their family members, that they've done what they need to do and will likely be all right when the big one strikes.

I am not such a person.

I offer no viable excuses. I live, after all, in earthquake country. I know that sooner or later, probably in my lifetime, there will come a shaking so profound as to bring in the major network evening news anchors, and CNN, and Fox, and maybe even HBO, to cover the devastation and do documentaries about the tragedy. I know that, as a local reporter, in addition to survival, my attention will be focused on finding ways to get information and post it in any way I can. And we have been told many times that, in the event of an emergency, you should be able to care for yourself and your family for three days, before emergency crews will be able to offer much assistance. I would say, based on the few disasters we've seen this early century, that three days is a little optimistic.

Water, canned food, flashlights, batteries, a first aid kit. . . these are things I should have close at hand at all times, and I don’t. An evacuation plan and agreed-upon meeting spot that the family knows and practices now and then is pretty much essential for keeping sane in an emergency where you might be separated, yet my family has nothing of the kind.

On those long, sleepless nights, I toss and turn, wondering where my shoes are, so if the big one hits I don’t have to wonder the devastated streets and smoldering ruins in my bare feet.

Perhaps this morning, these latest quakes will serve to remind me that there is still time to put a kit, and a plan, together. Perhaps these little jolts are the friendly shoves I need toward preparation. But then another deadline will come along, another phone call will come in, another bright, shiny object will grasp my limited attention and my good intentions will fly south once again.

But maybe not.

EVENTS:

TODAY IN HISTORY (from Wikipedia):

1916 - The United States National Park Service is created.

1944 - World War II: Paris is liberated by the Allies.

1945 - Ten days after World War II ends with Japan announcing its surrender, armed supporters of the Communist Party of China kill Baptist missionary John Birch, regarded by some of the American right as the first victim of the Cold War.

1950 - President Harry Truman orders the US Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike.