Well, not always… but for the last two LA “big ones” – today’s Chino Hills quake and the much bigger 1994 Northridge quake – I was far from home. I am still on Kauai and was hiking the Kalalau Trail when the shaker hit today. I didn’t know about it until hours later. In ’94, I was at the Sundance Institute, pretending to teach people how to write screenplays. I learned about that one over breakfast. Neither quake did any damage to my house.
What this all means, I’m not sure. But maybe I could extort some money from the LA City Council by promising to stay out of town. (I won’t tell them I was home for the 1971 Sylmar quake, living in an old house in Echo Park where the internal chimney came down three feet from my head and almost buried me alive.)
Probably just a pleasant coincidence, Roger. It’s not like jinxing a no-hitter by mentioning the possibility on the air – which is all too real – ask Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander.
Just promise not to open any more fast food restaurants in low income areas and everything will be jake…until the next nanny state decree, anyway. Leave the extortion to the politicians — it’s their field of expertise.
I was in the left-field bleachers at Candlestick Park when the Loma Prieta quake hit in 1989.
Recently, we were hiking in the sea-facing lava field in the Big Island shortly before a significant earthquake/eruption closed Volcano National Park. We got out of the park about ten minutes before the quake.
As for politicians, why hasn’t the LA City Council outlawed earthquakes? After all, they can control sea levels, glacial melt, and obesity with their decrees – why not plate tectonics?