It was my then-girlfriend's 40th bday (she was quite a bit older than I was) and I was driving from work to meet her and her family to celebrate at her house, and watch the World Series together. Everything changed in that moment. I pulled my VW van to the side of the road thinking it was just falling apart (not out of the question, LOL), the street lamp posts were literally making a howling sound from the violent shaking, a chimney collapsed and flattened a pickup truck right in front of me, unreal. Seemed like it lasted forever but it was probably less than a minute (don't remember the exact duration). When I got to her house her poor Mom was in the kitchen trying to deal with it all, a huge pot of spaghetti sauce had been tossed all over the kitchen and gave everything a faux bloody vibe, anything that wasn't bolted down was tossed all over the place, not good but others had it worse and lost their homes completely and a few lost their lives.
Santa Cruz's downtown was in shambles for years (businesses moved their stores into giant tents), we had no power for days, no phones, no communications but word of mouth and whatever we could get from AM radio. Many of the local bridges were damaged so travel to get anywhere was pretty much impossible. I mostly rode my bike for awhile because of that.
Some people slept outside on their lawns for a few nights as the aftershocks just kept coming, one after another, and we didn't know if the really big one was still on the way. I lived in a small geodesic dome (I used to get some of Steve Wozniak's mail there, apparently he had lived in that little house before I did, odd, it was really tiny but secluded so maybe he liked that) where I slept in the loft. The aftershocks were somehow so loud (I still don't understand this) that I could be asleep, hear one coming, scramble down the loft ladder and be just about out the front door by the time one hit.
I hope I never experience anything like that again. Before that, I always laughed at earthquakes, they were kind of fun and mostly harmless in my experience. To no longer trust the earth beneath your feet is an odd feeling, one that persisted for quite awhile.
edit to add: happy b-day to my ex, if she is reading this, she was a good Democrat so who knows.
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