My wife has relatives in Alabama who, on more than one occasion, have told her that they wouldn’t want to move to California because of all the earthquakes we get here. They say: “We don’t know how y’all can live out there.”
I’ve felt only two earthquakes in my lifetime. The first when I was about 14 or so. I was at a family New Year’s Day celebration at my uncle’s house in Irvine in Southern California. I was lying on a couch watching some morning college football games as my parents and aunts and uncles were playing a hand in an all-night poker game (something of a family tradition). Then, suddenly, the couch began to gently shake as if a train roared by outside, but without the noise. It lasted only a few seconds, and then it stopped. It wasn’t until they finished the hand that one of my uncles said: “Hey, was that an earthquake?”
The second time was the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. I was just pulling up to an assignment in my car when I felt a jolt, which I attributed to my meager parking skills. I didn’t think it was a tremor until the subject of my assignment asked me if I felt the quake.
That’s two earthquakes that I’ve felt in 53 years of my life. The Midwest and the South have tornadoes. Every year there are whole seasons when the twisters appear to cause injuries and deaths and tremendous amounts of property damage.
On April 11, San Joaquin County experienced a very unusual occurance for this part of the country: a tornado. It touched down at a small, fairly isolated farm on Howard Road near Roberts Road near French Camp. The twister approached from the southwest and tipped an empty box-type semi trailer onto its side. Even empty the trailer weighs several tons.
The tornado then moved on to a 50-foot by 50-foot workshop, which it obliterated. It moved on to a fallow field and scattered the debris over an area about the size of a soccer pitch. Abel Cardona was helping Valentine Gutierrez, who lives on the farm, fix a bathroom sink. He said that they heard a rush of wind and then some crackling, like from electrical lines to a nearby power pole. They ran to a window and saw the workshop lift off the ground and then explode into a million pieces. The west wall of the building was the only thing left that looked like a building. Still, it was bent and beaten and leaned against a Mazda pickup and a semi tractor that were parked next to it.
What was amazing to see was how random and selective the tornado was. Another semi trailer about 10 feet away from the one that was blown over was untouched. The twister passed up a parked car before attacking the workshop.
About 30 yards to the southeast of the workshop stood a simple pole barn, sort of a roof on tall posts with no sides. You’d think that something like that would be blown over easily, yet it was untouched.
Some 20 yards to the west, a barn with some farm animals inside also escaped damage. A small outbuilding to the north of the workshop by a few feet suffered damage to some of its tile roof but was otherwise unscathed. The farmhouse, about 40 yards to the north, was undamaged as well, but debris from the workshop was deposited in the field about 20 to 40 yards to the east. One piece of metal siding impaled itself on a wooden utility pole about 20 feet from the ground. Another was draped over a phone line about 100 yards to the north along Howard Road.
Even within the workshop itself the damage was selective. A newly painted 1971 Chevrolet Caprice and a boat were parked in the shed when the twister hit. At first glance they looked be untouched, but upon closer examination a slash-like dent adorned the car’s nose, and its body carried numerous scratches. The boat suffered a broken window and bore the weight of several wooden beams across its stern.
Various tools and appliances, such as a gas-powered leaf blower, lay strewn about the concrete footprint of the workshop. A rectangular folding table stood intact. A case of Coronas lay beneath it with some of the bottles smashed. Another case sat atop the table untouched.
There are twisters that touch down in other parts of the country powerful enough to obliterate whole neighborhoods. The French Camp storm was only a category F1, the second-weakest level on the Fujita scale with winds ranging from 86 to110 mph. (The scale goes from F0, with wind speeds from 40 to 72 mph, up to F5, with wind speeds from 261 to 381mph).
Every part of the country has its potential disasters, from floods to wildfires to mudslides. We all make choices on where to live. In California, we’re used to the occasional earthquake, and we’ve prepared for them. Given how much damage just one small whirlwind did here in San Joaquin County, the Midwest and the South can keep their tornadoes.
