DEJA VU

Loma Prieta Earthquake, San Francisco, 1989

The telephone rang. As I answered it, I pictured a former boss on the other end of the line. As she spoke, I became extremely anxious. She was asking me to come in and talk to her about "a hurricane position". There was nothing about a hurricane in the news. Next I found myself walking through a center filled with people on the telephone and computers. With a start, I woke up. My heart was pounding. It was a dream. I dreamed I was going back to work for FEMA! When I left the FEMA National Teleregistration Center over fifteen years ago, the Operations Manager at the time told me that if I ever wanted to return, I would be welcome. Over cake and punch at the small good-bye gathering, I jokingly said to her, "If the big one hits California, give me a call. I'll come back only for that disaster." I threw off the covers, took a long drink from the glass of water on my bedside table, turned on the lamp, and looked at the time. Too early to get up, I picked up my book and started to read.

Cypress Freeway, Loma Prieta EQ, 1989

The disturbing images and news from the tragedy in Japan are continuing to fill my mind and keep me from sleeping well. Like the proverbial moth to the flame, I cannot stay away from the news sites on the Internet. Over and over I watch in horror the scenes of devastation from the earthquake and tsunami. It brought back vivid memories of the time in 1989 when the California coast was hit by a 7.1 (surface magnitude) earthquake, with the epicenter in Santa Cruz. I still remember the fear I felt for the victims caught in their cars on the lower level of the Cypress Freeway in San Francisco as it collapsed on them. I cried and wrung my hands watching the rescue efforts on television. Can you imagine the devastation if the multi-level freeway system in Tokyo had suffered the same effects in the 9.0 magnitude earthquake?

Tokyo Freeways, 2011

One cannot imagine the horror the victims of the earthquake and resulting tsunami felt, and the sadness they are experiencing as their losses are becoming more apparent by the day. So many have lost everything.. family members, homes, and belongings. As if that were not more than most humans could bear, they are now facing another disaster in the possible meltdown of one or more nuclear reactors at the numerous power plants located along the coast of Japan. Many survivors of the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II must be absolutely terrified at the news of an impending nuclear reactor meltdown!

Japan Tsunami, 2011

Reading the reports online as well as seeing images of the devastation of these multiple events, I keep hearing echoes of reports I heard when I was at FEMA. One was the explanation of the tectonic plate system of the earth given to me by one of the long-time FEMA employees. How often (but not always), when there is a major earthquake on one side of a tectonic plate, there will follow, in a relatively short period of time, another earthquake on the opposite side. This led me to do some research on the "Ring of Fire", which is a zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that encircles the Pacific Ocean basin. 90% of the world's earthquakes, and 81% of the largest earthquakes occur along this Ring of Fire. Since 2004, the following earthquakes have occurred along this ring. These are only the major earthquakes and/or tsunamis.

*Dec. 2004 ~ A 9.1 magnitude earthquake off the coast of Aceh, with a resulting tsunami that killed a quarter million people in 13 countries, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand. This triggered other earthquakes as far away as Alaska.

*Sept. 2009 ~ Earthquake off Sumatra, resulting in tsunami killing 1,000.

*Feb. 2010 ~ 8.8 earthquake in Chile.

*Oct. 2010 ~ 7.7 Sumatra earthquake, resulting in Indonesia tsunami killing over 100, over 500 missing.

*Jan. 2011 ~ 6.8 earthquake in Chile.

*Feb.2011 ~ 6.3 earthquake in New Zealand.

*March 2011 ~ 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The numbers of dead and missing are still being tallied.

Ring of Fire

Was my dream about a "hurricane position" really a forewarning of the really "big one", an earthquake supposed to hit the California coast along the San Andreas fault? The fear that this might be the case led me to doing the above research. It appears that that part of the world is overdue for another massive earthquake. Not since the California Northridge earthquake in 1994, which registered at 6.7 and caused 33 deaths and 8,700 injuries, has there been a major earthquake in the U.S. In the past seven years, it's the only area along the Ring of Fire that hasn't been struck. (I didn't list the horrific Haiti earthquake, as it did not occur along the Ring of Fire.)

As a result of the impending meltdowns of the Japanese nuclear power plants, I looked back at my experience with Three-Mile Island. 1979. We lived one hundred miles from the nuclear power plant. We had seen the movie "China Syndrome" just a week or so before the occurrence, and were glued to the daily news reports. Of course, we had no cable TV or Internet at that time, so whatever the major TV networks and our newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, reported was all we had to go by. From that point in time I was fearful of nuclear power. It has lingered in the back of my mind - fueled by the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown as well. For years I wondered if I or my youngest child who lived with me at the time would suffer any effects from the Three-Mile Island meltdown.

In America, there are over 100 operating nuclear power plants, and 16 nonoperational power plants - shut down for various reasons. There are also a large number of nuclear fuel and weapons facilities. One of these is located only a few miles from Amarillo, Texas where my daughter and her family currently reside. This is Pantex, the only nuclear weapon assembly/disassembly of WMDs facility in operation today.

From the beginning of the nuclear energy movement, my big concern has always been the radioactive waste produced by these facilities. Some of the ones that have been closed still maintain fuel or wastes. There are still several in operation in California as well as those that were shut down or "decommissioned". The radioactive material will have to go somewhere. If a major earthquake destroys or damages all or even some of the sites - then what?

From Wikipedia: "Radioactivity diminishes over time, so in principle the waste needs to be isolated for a period of time until it no longer poses a hazard. This can mean hours to years for some common medical or industrial radioactive wastes, or thousands of years for high-level wastes from nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons reprocessing." That's THOUSANDS of years, folks!!

And we worry about radioactive fallout traveling 5,000 miles across the ocean? We should be more concerned with the nuclear facilities in our own back yard! You think?? 

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Being an empath, I am very sensitive to emotions and moods of others (although this was unbeknown to me at the time). At one FEMA deployment, I turned around and walked out of the facility shortly after reporting for duty. There was the usual chaos as the telephones were ringing faster than we had people to man the lines. The emotions ran high, supervisors were frantic with preparations as their job performance could make or break careers. When I entered this place already filled with at least one hundred souls speaking to desperate people on the telephones, I felt like I had been hit in the gut. I was physically ill from the energy of so many negative emotions. Go back? Not on your life. I am experiencing enough emotional trauma now from reviewing all the disasters going on around us in the world without getting up close to them.

The best I can do is send my love and prayers to the people of Japan, the rebels who are suffering in their attempts to overthrow despotic regimes, and the wonderful people around the world who are going to their rescue. Over 100 countries have sent rescue personnel and military assistance to Japan. Soon we shall see the no-fly zone finally in place in Libya. Hopefully, that will stop the brutal attacks on the rebels in Yemen and Bahrain as well. The world is watching.

Maybe I should find a group to join in opposition to any more nuclear power plants being built in this country. And, just maybe, I should go on another "news fast". This time I probably should include Internet news sites.

I might just get a good night's sleep.

Peace and love,
Marilyn