Damage from Sunday’s earthquake in Napa Valley
“Always, in truth, Muir found more than he expected in nature. Never did he get enough of wildness. Of those who have written of nature surprisingly well—Gilbert White, Henry Thoreau, Richard Jefferies, W. H. Hudson—John Muir was the wildest. He was the most active, the most at home in the wilderness, the most daring, the most capable, the most self-reliant.†The Wilderness World of John Muir, by Edwin Way Teal.
Studying John Muir for over 50 years has shown me that he went places physically, mentally and spiritually that I would never go. I was raking leaves outside, during the October 17, 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, when a moving wave of earth nearly knocked me down. I thought I was pretty clever to yell to my family, “A noble earthquakeâ€! It came and went so quickly that there wasn’t enough time to be scared.
In trying to “get as close to the heart of nature as I can,†Muir nearly fell off a cliff into Yosemite Valley, rode an avalanche, climbed a 100-ft-tall Douglas Fir tree (in a wind storm), inched behind Upper Yosemite Waterfall, nearly died crossing an ice bridge over an Alaskan crevasse, and survived the 1872 violent earthquake in Yosemite Valley.
“In Yosemite Valley, one morning about two o’clock, I was aroused by an earthquake; and though I had never before enjoyed a storm of this sort, the strange, wild thrilling motion and rumbling could not be mistaken and I ran out of my cabin, near the Sentinel Rock, both glad and frightened, shouting, ‘A noble earthquake!’ feeling sure that I was going to learn something. The shocks were so violent and varied, and succeeded one another so closely, one had to balance in walking as if walking on the deck of a ship among the waves, and it seemed impossible the high cliffs should escape being shattered. In particular, I feared that the sheer-fronted Sentinel Rock, which rises to height of 3,000 feet, would be shaken down, and I took shelter back of a big pine, hoping I might be protected from out-bounding boulders, should any come so far.â€
He learned later that his thoughts of safety were likely misguided. He discovered a grove of 200 ft-tall Ponderosa Pine trees that were crushed into “match sticks†by a slab of tumbling granite.
What happened in Napa Valley at 3:20 AM on August 24, 2014 did not come and go quickly. Seismic scientists claim the quake lasted 20 seconds. If this is true, they must have been the longest 20 seconds in my life. The quake hit like a storm and the whole house lurched violently in a north/south direction. Floors, walls and ceilings creaked, cracked and groaned as if they were going to explode. Lamps tumbled off of end tables and nightstands. Pictures flew off of the walls. At the peak, I was convinced that the house was about to be ripped from the foundation. Christie bolted awake and screamed, “Lowell make it stop!†Her screaming amplified the intensity of my fear, helplessness and wonderment if the horror would ever end. We are supposed to be able to think 600 words per minute, however, in that 20 seconds my mind covered cartloads of books.
Thankfully it did end and amazingly no broken lamps; pictures were replaced; drawers and doors closed properly. Only one ceramic coffee pot was shattered and a single pot-metal window hasp crystallized under the strain. We got back to a restless sleep. During breakfast I remembered John Muir and guessed that if the old “Tramp†were still alive he would have run down the street yelling, “A noble earthquake, come out and let us see what lessons nature has in store for us.â€