Thirty years since the Northridge earthquake

[intrepidity]

5. That was traumatic for me

Lived a few miles from the epicenter. Just horrible.

I remember driving as soon as the sun came up and listening to the radio and them saying stuff like "No reports of any major damage or fatalities yet" and there's brick walls on both sides of the road I'm on just flattened, and my mind can't reconcile the disconnect. Locals were calling into the radio show (KFI, probably Bill Handle) describing the destruction, which *did* reflect what I was seeing, but the periodic news reports kept saying "no major damage reported" and that's when I learned a valuable lesson: in the early hours after a major event, it often takes a long time for even somewhat accurate damage assessments to come out---of course, this was pre-internet/smart phones, but it still applies somewhat today.

That was a day that shook me to my core, pun fully intended.