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As the dust settled and the 6.5 quake subsided, I saw the damage in my home and it was light compared to the shock in my gut. The big screen TV was knocked over but worked when the electric returned. The PG&E people were great and the lights were back up in a few hours. What heroes they are. The fire, police and medical people were ready and steady as rain in spring.
Humboldt County system held up and we were lucky and ready.
A few days later, the news hit that Haiti experienced a 7.2 earthquake that killed thousands. I realize that with each point, the quake magnitude doubles but the half point difference did not explain the damage differences; it was vast. We had a few minor injuries and some damage but after viewing the devastation on TV of Port-Au- Prince, I was appalled and baffled.
Is this the difference between Third World and California? Are there construction requirements or codes that are far off from the methods we use? Shock waves travel in weird directions and according to seismologists, it's the wave type that matters.
Yet even that does not explain how a half-points difference in comparison to the damage betwixt the two. It has to be shady construction or corruption that made it easy to circumvent the construction laws. And the fact that earthquakes are rare in the Caribbean left them vulnerable and unprepared. Prepared for hurricanes but not tremblers, there is little precedent for earth shaking in the Caribbean.
I have spent quite a bit of time in the Caribbean, worked and lived in Jamaica and know that the laws and standards are not the same as the USA, yet the pain and suffering is something I do not know. The faces of devastation on the people of Haiti haunt my dreams - after all, that could have been us.
Thank God for Humboldt County people and services. We are blessed to live in this beautiful area. And we are also blessed to have services and construction that cares for people.
Robert W Barker
Eureka
