Let me clarify. I live in California. I KNOW from
first hand experience, having sat on the very
epicenter of a major quake, what the damage to
individuals can be, the psychological damage to
friends and family. It is not soon forgotten. Of
COURSE, I'm concerned about the human element.
But humanity will last longer than you and I--I
hope--and for all generations to come, I'm hoping some
of those institutions we revere have been preserved.
I know that earthquake damage from a quake several
years back was only recently reversed. My mind is
blanking, but all I can think of is Giotto.
I woke up to the news of the quake. Before my eyes
were open, all I could see were visions of the great
Renaissance and proto-Renaissance art I studied as my
first course when I went back to school in 92. It
pained me as though I had lost a dear friend when the
last quake did such damage. I didn't want to lose any
more of my friends.
As with any major disaster--exacerbated especially by
the network of friends one makes online--I did a
mental bedcheck. Starlene Myers came to mind. Beyond
that, I wasn't personally cognizant of any other list
members in Italy, at least not in the contacts I've
made.
But, back to human quake damage, beyond the loss of
life, they can be scarring memories that are not
forgotten. When I rid myself of many of my
possessions from my old office recently, I simply
could not throw away the pictures of what my office
looked like as I sat shuddering under my desk waiting
for the all clear and hoping there was a stairwell to
go down. Four flights of stairs in the dark because
someone accidentally put the backup generator on
manual, I can remember that it was only our humanity
that got us through. We literally had to form a human
chain to get down the stairs. You had to hold the
wall and pat your foot to hope that there would be a
stairwell.
For years, I kept my hardhat under my desk along with
a backup of my computer and next to that was a pouch
with a flashlight. Little tremors found me falling to
my knees trying to decide if I were going under my
desk or if I should get back in my chair to avoid the
perception of being idiotic.
The conversion to modular furniture from the heavy
steel desk I used to have didn't do anything to allay
those fears. All I can remember is the monitor having
flown off someplace else. Ceiling tiles were all over
the floor. The bookcase behind me had fallen over and
toppled onto my desk, and how in the heck was modular
going to fix that? I sat next to an L shaped window
and, while we were rocking and reeling, I kept
thinking it would implode.
I remember coming out and each one yelling "So and so,
are you ok?" I can remember going down the stairwell
to go home and retrieve the children I had just talked
to before it started who were home alone and coming
back to stand in the office parking lot because I
didn't want anybody to foolishly think I was still
inside, go back to rescue me, and get hurt. If we
were going to die, we were going together, my kids and
I. So don't think I don't know about the human
element.
It was I who counseled others who immediately picked
up land lines to call home in subsequent tremors and
told them to get off the phone because they could be
keeping someone who needed emergency service from
getting through. Yes, I remember all too well the
human side of quakes.
Our building was built in 1971 and was not then up to
the new earthquake code. But many of the institutions
that we so revere are simply never going to be up to
code. It took more than a decade to restore the 200
something year old San Gabriel Mission that was about
5 miles from where I huddled.
Besides the human elements here, we are concerned for
the humanities, are we not?
--- kizmo <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Indigo Nights,
> I think "Institutional damage" is the last thing on
> our minds when we think
> of friends who are teachers out in Rome and
> surrounding environs at the
> moment who have not checked in as yet!
=====
Indigo Nights
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