Empty Streets, Empty Highways, Nervous People
Mendocino County has been on my mind this week. Same for California and New York. Italy has been locked down. Borders are being closed. As of this writing the fifth largest economy in the world—California—has adopted “shelter-in place”. In varying degrees we are all in semi-solitary confinement. A trip to the grocery store, or the pharmacy, or the doctor is an adventure because (with few exceptions) those are the only places we can go. This pandemic is real. The only thing uncertain is what we—you, me, all of us—will be feeling when the restrictions are lifted.
As with any crisis there are, to be sure, non-believers. The Washington Post’s Annie Gowen quoted a Kansas woman who believes that the Corona virus is simply “mass hysteria caused by the liberal media. They want to take Trump and our economy down.” Right. Americans want to tank the entire economy. Pick your own theory: [1] A new virus has mutated from animals to humans, [2] it’s mass hysteria caused by the liberal media exaggerating this virus, or [3] it’s all a hoax. Whatever your belief, we’re seeing empty streets, empty roads, and businesses under duress.
I’ve lived in California for 25 years. About half of those years were spent in Los Angeles (1977-1990), while the other half (since 2006) have been here in northern California’s Mendocino County. Even when I wasn’t living here I visited the state often, mostly on business although occasionally simply as a tourist. I remember our first visit to Disneyland in December 1973. It was really a magical place as we met Mickey, Goofey and Minnie, took a turn on all the rides and exhausted ourselves with fun, and over the years we returned to the Magic Kingdom 6 or 8 times as friends and family visited us in California. Leave worries at the gate and enter a place of escape.
While working at BMG in New York in the ‘90s (I was running a small video and film division for the music giant) I traveled to California 3-4 times per year. My preference was almost always about catching an early flight, renting a car, and hitting the ground running when I arrived because traffic was then (and certainly is now) horrendous. One of those visits was on January 17, 1994. My flight was a 9:00am departure from JFK, getting me into Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) about 11:00am. About an hour before landing in Los Angeles the pilot announced that there had been an earthquake in the L.A. area. I rarely gave earthquakes a 2nd thought after living a dozen years in southern California and having personally experienced some rumblers and some rollers.
Tucked into my rental car I headed from LAX to the 405/San Diego Freeway. Instead of typically heavy traffic leaving the airport and getting to the freeway, the streets were clear. Taking a left turn onto the 405 I was in for a shock. All lanes of the freeway were empty. I mean, maybe a car here or a car there but essentially empty. Heading north I exited at Santa Monica Blvd. and drove to my meeting at the design firm Art Hotel in West Hollywood. While owner and designer Chris Whorf and I talked about images, packaging, and design elements for BMG’s upcoming video releases, we kept the radio on to hear the earthquake updates. I was tempted to consider driving north to Santa Clarita where we lived for 13 years. The reports came in continuously.
The quake hit at 4:30am California time and lasted almost 20 seconds. For the uninitiated, when you’re there feeling the quake, 20 seconds is an eternity. The Northridge Quake, as it would be (incorrectly) labeled, registered with a 6.7 Richter Scale magnitude. The epicenter was actually closer to the city of Reseda, near the spot where the 405 meets I-5 heading north toward the Santa Clarita Valley. As to the severity of the quake, here’s a line that should get your attention: “[the quake’s] peak ground acceleration was the highest ever instrumentally recorded in an urban area in North America”. It was felt 200+ miles away in Las Vegas. Two 6.0 aftershocks followed, the first about one minute after the initial event and the second approximately 11 hours later. There were several thousand aftershocks in all. The death toll was 57, and more than 8,700 people were injured. Property damage was estimated to be almost $50 billion, making it one of the costliest natural disasters in American history.
As it was now approaching 3:00pm, and hearing of the destruction of houses, commercial buildings, and a collapsed freeway (near Santa Clarita), my expectation of driving to my old neighborhood or keeping any of the other meetings over the next two days vanished. I called the airline, changed my flight, said goodbye to Chris, returned to LAX driving on a still empty 405, and flew back to New York. It was a brief and entirely surreal visit to La La Land.
This morning I drove down the hill to beautiful downtown Gualala to pick up a few necessities. There were a total of 3 customers at Gualala Supermarket. There was 1 person at the Post Office. Trink’s Cafe appeared to be closed. Granted, it’s not the same as talking about an empty San Diego Freeway after the quake, but just the same we’ve all been caught up in a new reality. It may be temporary but it’s real. A lot of us will lose wages and income. Some may lose more. But I realized that I'm happy living up here in Mendocino County right now. I’d rather be enduring this current crisis with my friends, neighbors, and fellow business people knowing that on the other side, we’ll come out bruised, perhaps, but not beaten. At least that’s my hope.
