Last night as a joke, I emailed a friend, 'see you in 2012...Mayan.' My bad. The goddess doesn't like it when you screw around with ancient mythology. In retro, I should 'can' all doomsday references and take care of my own backyard S**t, the Hayward fault. The Hayward fault is the 'Bay Bridge' of fault lines; 2nd banana to the more powerful, publicity crazed San Andreas fault which shoots off a headline every decade or so. Everyone outside of Cali recognizes the glamorous San Andreas. The Hayward fault garners zero facial recognition. Nada. Except to the populations of Hayward, Oakland, and Berkeley, who reside smugly outside the San Fran glitz, basking in the shadow of the greatest University in the land (and I don't mean the one in Palo Alto), and harboring denial like it was a bogey man hiding under the bed until the Hayward goes off and rears. June 10, 1836, magnitude 6.7; the quake is felt as far away as Monterrey. Oct. 21, 1868, magnitude 7.0; this quake ripped fissures open and some city streets sank. For the past several weeks, the Hayward fault has been alleviating pressure, which, ok, is a good thing; several of the quakes have been centered in Berkeley close to the UC campus, and under the hills. When the epicenter is sitting beneath you, 3.9 feels damn big. And early this morning, 3.6, in the dark, felt like Godzilla was shaking the apt building. No joke. Why? Why do I continue to perpetuate my future demise by an act of nature which every single seismologist predicts is coming? The Hayward fault though, ripe for a monster shake, is not the stuff my nightmares are made of. In my dreams, it's always the same. On a beach or along the seashore. The water recedes and I'm running towards the sea wall. Sometimes I make it. And sometimes I don't. Get those earthquake kits up to date.
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