It's Friday. Californians share their formative memories of earthquakes, fires and floods. Plus, a San Francisco gallery owner was charged after spraying a homeless woman with a hose. |
 | | Alexandra Hootnick for The New York Times |
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The power of nature is never far from mind in California. In fact, to live here for any length of time is to have it embedded in your memories. |
I have lived here for 40 years, and will never forget the arms of my then-toddler daughter around my neck as our whole house shook in the Northridge earthquake, for instance. Or a scramble to evacuate in which I inexplicably felt it was imperative to save a particular cake pan. Or the night I disembarked from a Southwest plane on the tarmac in Burbank with the mountains on fire behind us. Or the tsunami warning in which our youngest refused to leave any of her stuffed animals behind. |
My colleague Soumya Karlamangla (your gracious California Today host) remembers standing on a freeway overpass as an 11-year-old with all of her neighbors and looking at the fires in the distance, and helping her parents evacuate their house in 2018 "and the wind being so strong I couldn't keep the car door open." |
Our editor, Kevin Yamamura, wrote recently that "the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, experienced in the left-field seats at Candlestick Park, was the first time I really understood that we could not control the ground beneath us." |
Such moments become indelible, even in a place known for natural disasters. There is something about the way the danger pulls you up and out of yourself, intensifying the moment, the way turning a painting upside down can make its colors suddenly come alive. That feeling is why surfers thrill at winter storms and the Santa Ana wind. One guy I used to know would lie on the floor during earthquakes, the better to feel them. |
We asked you to share your experiences with the power of nature, which was on such forceful display during the recent storm systems. Your responses were beautiful, wrenching and abundant, just like California. |
"On our wedding night, we could actually see the giant red and orange flames of wildfire raging in the distance as we drove home from Yosemite. Our wedding photos are shrouded in smoke." — Kathryn Lewis, Modesto |
"In 1989, I was at home finishing homework (I was 15). Richard Marx's 'Angelia' was on the radio and the earthquake seemed to go on and on." — Brooke Habecker, Redwood City |
"I was at Candlestick Park watching the 49ers play the Detroit Lions on Oct. 20, 1991, on a beautiful fall afternoon, when soot and ash began raining down. A large piece of ash landed on me and I realized it was a burnt piece of a page from a book." — Wesley Leung, San Mateo, remembering the Oakland Hills firestorm |
"Anyone in the Bay Area in 2020 remembers the 'orange sky day' — the day the smoke from large wildfires elsewhere in the state choked out the sun and turned the sky a dusky red-orange color from morning to night. It was still the early days of the pandemic when everything was so uncertain, but that was the day I really understood that nothing in nature is a given — not even the color of the sky." — Carley Davenport, Oakland |
"I was standing in the back door of our house looking at my husband working out in the garden. As the house started to shake it was all I could do to hang onto the doorway. My husband later said that the house was actually rippling. Later that evening we took a walk through the dark neighborhood. We could see the headlights of cars coming over the Castro Street hill. Noe Valley residents brought out their grills and the contents of their fridges and were barbecuing on the sidewalk." — Kit Cameron, San Francisco, remembering Loma Prieta |
"I was at home, a few miles north of the Northridge earthquake epicenter, when I was awakened by intense shaking at 4:31 a.m. on Jan. 17, 1994. I got out of bed, felt my way in the dark to put on my clothing and shoes, and grabbed a flashlight to check on my neighbors. As dawn broke on that clear, windy morning, I swept up the broken glassware and dishes in the kitchen. As advised on the car radio, I drove with extreme caution — treating inoperable traffic signals as four-way stop signs — 10 miles to Kaiser's Panorama City hospital, where I was a pediatrician and medical geneticist. They needed every hand." — Harold N. Bass, M.D., Porter Ranch |
"I was 10 years old and asleep in my Fairfax district second-story bed when suddenly I found myself on the floor with no memory of how I got there, even though the floor was still in upheaval." — Ken Rudolph, Los Angeles, remembering the 1952 Tehachapi earthquake |
"I was working with an 8-year-old tutoring student in the Mission District of San Francisco. The earth began to move and, like good Californians, we waited for it to stop. It didn't. As the shaking increased, we moved to stand in a door frame. As we held on to the frame, my student looked up at me and said, 'What makes earthquakes?' I found myself trying to explain plate tectonics as the earth rolled." — Jane Sprouse, Walnut Creek |
"The 70 m.p.h. winds sounded like a freight train. Around 1 a.m., waking from a dead sleep to a huge boom and then the house shaking like an earthquake as a tree scraped across the front of the house — scraping, glass breaking, crunching and then it was done. In our family, we have partitioned our memories into 'before' and 'after' the tree." — Jennifer Mantle, Boulder Creek, on Santa Cruz County's 2019 winter storms |
"Dogs barking, smoke alarms going off, sheriffs knocking on doors, voices screaming, 'Run NOW!' Driving through forests of flaming trees, smoke so thick your lungs were on fire and you couldn't see the road in front of you." — Robert Starkey, San Francisco, remembering the 2017 Tubbs fire |
"My husband and I were coming home on Amtrak's California Zephyr in March 2018. Our train was the last to get through the Donner Pass before a blizzard closed the tracks for two days. As we rolled through the pass, we saw one magical scene after another out the window of our sleeper car. This was one of them." — Sue Simon, Sonoma, remembering the 2018 Sierra Nevada storms |
 | | Sue Simon |
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 | | Jae C. Hong/Associated Press |
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- Emergency landing: A small airplane made a safe emergency landing on a state beach on the San Diego County coast, The Associated Press reports.
- Missing hikers: The British actor Julian Sands, known for his role in the 1986 film "A Room With a View," is one of two missing hikers whom the authorities are searching for in the San Gabriel Mountains.
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- San Francisco gallery owner: An art gallery owner who sprayed a homeless woman with a hose outside his business in the Financial District has been charged with misdemeanor battery.
- Oakland election questions: Questions have begun to emerge about how Alameda County conducted its ranked-choice voting in November's election, particularly in the Oakland mayor's race, The Mercury News reports.
- Mosquito fire: El Dorado and Placer Counties filed suit against Pacific Gas and Electric. claiming that the utility's equipment caused last year's destructive Mosquito fire, The Sacramento Bee reports.
- Remembering Blanche: The beloved swan who lived at San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts died at age 28, The San Francisco Chronicle reports.
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 | | Linda Xiao for The New York Times |
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 | | Mendocino in 2017.George Rose/Getty Images |
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Today's tip comes from Bill Hildebrand, who recommends heading north from the Bay Area: |
"First, Point Reyes National Seashore. The great outdoors is great there: beaches, a historic lighthouse, tule elk, sea mammals and whales, hiking, camping (including some very cool hike-in sites), kayaking and fishing on Tomales Bay. There are a few very good restaurants, a wonderful bookstore, great local cheeses and other foodstuffs. Then, there are a million little gems, like the touristy but still very wonderful town of Mendocino; the rugged and isolated Lost Coast, which can be like Big Sur without all the tourists; and the hardworking coastal towns of Fort Bragg and Eureka. Our final destination is Redwood National Park. It is a trek to get there, but most of the drive is gorgeous. The park itself is stunning. There is absolutely nothing like being in the presence of thousand-year-old trees." |
Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We'll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter. |
 | | George Rose/Getty Images |
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And before you go, some good news |
As you're well aware, California has seen plenty of rain this winter. That has set the stage for an excellent bloom of springtime flowers, perhaps even a superbloom, National Geographic reports. |
These seas of flowers tend to emerge in California's state and national parks, particularly in desert regions. Even in the driest drought, deserts aren't wastelands, but a flower miracle waiting to happen. "The abundance is always there," said Evan Meyer, director of the Theodore Payne Foundation, which is focused on native plants. |
Thanks for reading. We'll be back on Monday. |
Soumya Karlamangla, Briana Scalia, and Isabella Grullón Paz contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at CAtoday@nytimes.com. |
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