Earthquakes

So here I am, in Temecula, Day 8 of vacation. I have watched more television this week than I think I've watched all year long. After watching a perfect game, a show about rigging on 2,000 foot TV towers, several cake shows, and reintroducing myself to the brilliance that was the Cosby Show, I am now watching a show about the inevitability of a catastrophic earthquake striking the Bay Area sometime yesterday.

Now of course there will be an earthquake. San Francisco is nestled between eight different active faultlines. Of course it will be catastrophic. There are millions of people and structures sitting on top of these faultlines. But will a quake kill the millions of people that the narrator is suggesting? I'm fairly certain we're a little beyond that possibility. It's not as if San Francisco is a little shantytown in India, with cinder blocks held up by tent poles and rubberbands. I think technology has come a much longer way since the 1906 than this show suggests.

I believe in being prepared for things like this, particularly if you happen to live in such a disaster-prone area. But this show is quite the little worst-case scenario designed to scare the crap out of people. Bridges crumble, city burns, people trample everyone, martial law is declared, Gavin Newsome's hair falls out of place, etc. etc. A little bit excessive for my tastes, but interesting information nonetheless.

I don't pretend to know what will happen to SF the next time an earthquake hits, but I have to assume we're much better prepared now than we were in 1906 and even in 1989. While I won't want to be in the city when the chaos occurs, I just can't buy into this doomsday perspective. But hey, whatever makes for good television, eh.

Speaking of which, should I continue watching TV (a Civil War program just started) or get out of the house and swim? A tough choice made even tougher by this comfy couch vs. my hot wife trying out a new bikini by the pool. Decisions, decisions........