Insights Emerge as City Celebrates
100-Year Anniversary of
1925 Temblor with Event Series
Imagine you’ve arrived for your Monday morning shift down on State Street by the railroad tracks, and you’re looking toward the Pacific Ocean as the 6:40 a.m. sun lights the sky. There appears to be a large wave approaching from the channel, but suddenly, it’s the earth — not the sea — that begins to rise from the shoreline and roll up the block. Earthen waves slam into the imposing Hotel Californian, and you watch as the neighborhood’s largest building crumbles to the ground in seconds.
The crazy crest sweeps you off of your own two feet, but you still manage to spot it rolling all the way up State Street, toppling brick and wooden structures all the way to Carrillo. What you can’t see is that the wave keeps surging, causing the San Marcos Building at Anapamu Street to telescope in on itself, and the water tower above the Arlington Hotel to plummet, both incidents crushing people to death below.
Perhaps, instead, you managed to snag an early tee time to start your week at La Cumbre Country Club, when a wild roar of the earth gives way to a violent jolt. The hills start to rise and fall, the entire landscape not shaking in scattered bursts — like those you’ve come to associate with the typical earthquake — but rolling along as if atop a long underground wave. Across town on Mission Ridge, that same wave triggers audible blasts as it buckles the pavement.
Or maybe you’re visiting from out of town, staying along the waterfront, when a large wave hits the beach right before the ground begins to make crunching noises and heave your way. The floor jumps up as you attempt to flee outside, like sudden waves roiling a calm canoe…