Soothsayer Causes a Lot of Quaking

Some seers and stargazers promise that a great earthquake will devastate Southern California tomorrow . . . or on Tuesday . . . or before the 15th of the month . . . or maybe by Christmas . . . or sooner or later.

The impetus for this latest rash of quake forecasting can be traced to the purposely vague ramblings of a French astrologer who has been dead so long that people remember only one of his names.

On this particular issue, Nostradamus (1503-66) has been quoted, misquoted, misunderstood, interpreted and reinterpreted until just about anyone with a passing interest has been convinced that there is an imminent, catastrophic earthquake headed our way--or convinced that one isn’t.

The debate has raised earthquake consciousness throughout Orange County. It has been a boon to a couple of age-old trades--psychics and astrologers. It has also given more than a modest boost to a spanking new line of work--earthquake-preparation supply.

Nevertheless, Shirley Curl, a Fullerton “biofeedback therapist” and self-professed psychic, casts a little doubt on Nostradamus’ credibility.

“He predicted a lot of earthquakes and he’s only been right on a 35% scale,” Curl said. “That’s pretty hit and miss.”

Curl is also not real keen about psychics hopping on Nostradamus’ bandwagon by the wagon load, each with a different understanding of what it was the 16th-Century seer really saw.

“You could drive yourself crazy,” Curl observed. “Will it be May 6, no May 10? Los Angeles? San Diego? Allowing yourself to buy into what some psychic is saying is giving away your power.”

Curl cautioned, however, that “our minds are powerful.” Therefore, she feels, if everyone dwells on the likelihood that the ground will rattle, it can create such bad vibes that we will virtually think ourselves into an earthquake.

“We’re creating this,” she insisted. “The more I worry about it, the more I create it. So I choose not to create it.”

Costa Mesa astrologer Laura Rose Des Jardins not only thinks about it, she thinks she has the date pretty well nailed down.

“There’s a potential it can come between the first of May and the 15th,” Des Jardins said on the fourth.

How so?

“Due to the Saturn-Uranus conjunction in the sign of Capricorn,” she explained as one would explain two-plus-two to a child. “Capricorn moves the earth and the land . . . and when you put those two planets together it’s very, very powerful.”

Of course, just in case, Des Jardins has a second choice: “If it doesn’t come now, then another time is December.”

The scientific community has not taken all this lying down. Since the recent television rerun of “The Man Who Saw Tomorrow,” a 1981 movie depicting the life of Nostradamus, the telephones have rung off the hook at places like Caltech in Pasadena, the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and fire stations in Orange County.

According to his interpreters, Nostradamus was trying to tell us that quake would come in “New City” (perhaps a common 16th-Century misspelling of Anaheim) when all the planets are aligned.

One drawback, according to the Griffith Observatory experts, is that the planets won’t be aligned this month and even if they were, their combined gravitational pull would be to earth as flea bites are to elephants.

Moreover, critics point out that the movie which advanced this prophecy lifted Nostradamus’ predictions out of context, mixing bits and pieces of different quatrains, the poetic verses in which he wrote.

“It is out of context and it is taking the quatrains and splitting them up and taking a couple different quatrains,” fessed up Des Jardins. “He (Nostradamus) deliberately tried to be deceptive. He didn’t want the average person to understand; he wanted astrologers to understand.

“At that time it (astrology) was still considered a very sacred science. You wouldn’t just give this knowledge to the average person.”

Des Jardins said Nostradamus didn’t want to scare anybody, although it is difficult to imagine just how much panic there might have been in France in the Middle Ages had the typical Frenchman on the street suddenly discovered that there was going to be a big earthquake in Los Angeles 400 years hence.

There has, however, been a bit of uneasiness, ranging up to mild hysteria, among the local population in recent weeks.

“Any astrologer or psychic who makes a prediction that an earthquake is coming is going to be right sooner or later because we live in earthquake country,” according to astrologer Elayne Manago of Laguna Niguel. “I think these are sensationalism-seeking astrologers and psychics, and they are getting the population all upset.”

Fear of the impending quake reportedly has sent many people out of state to the safe confines of places such as Arizona and Nebraska. Manago is leaving town, too, but she insists that it is not because she is afraid of earthquakes.

“I’m going to Italy and Switzerland and have planned to for five months,” she said.

Kathy Gannon is not going anywhere. She is too busy.

Gannon says her business, Emergency Life Line Corp. in Santa Ana, is “overwhelmed” with orders for earthquake survival gear.

“We’ve had lots and lots of calls. Everybody’s panicked,” she said. “I think it is a combination of the predictions and also that government agencies and those promoting earthquake preparedness have done a real good job.”

(April, in case you didn’t notice, was Earthquake Preparedness Month. There is no evidence that Nostradamus knew this in advance.)

Gannon’s sales staff offers 50 different products, including flashlight batteries with 10-year shelf life and 4-ounce plastic pouches and 55-gallon drums for storing water.

“They are swamped providing water,” Gannon observed. Although she won’t give details on the volume of sales, Gannon said after last October’s Whittier earthquake, “we increased 3,000% from what we had been doing.” Since the Nostradamus brouhaha, “we are getting close to doubling what we did in October.

“I think many don’t think for sure there is going to be one (earthquake), but that they’ve put this off too long,” she suggested.

Meanwhile, earthquake-preparedness suppliers “are popping up all over.”

Personally, Gannon doesn’t necessarily put any faith in Nostradamus’ or anyone else’s dire warnings of a big shake-up this month.

“I talk to my friends who are scientists, and they say they don’t believe May is any different than any other month,” she said. “These predictions have motivated people to get prepared.”

There is the possibility that amid all the fretting and fussing about the Big One, everybody may be taken by surprise, and knocked for a loop, by a little one.

Dale Brown, program coordinator for the Orange County Fire Department’s emergency management division, said people are very earthquake-conscious because they know scientists expect a massive quake along the San Andreas fault within the next several decades. Such jolts registering in the range of 8.0 on the Richter Scale have occurred about every 145 years, dating back to AD 575.

But Brown fears that people will let their guard down if May should pass and Nostradamus’ predicted quake does not occur.

Orange County residents should be more concerned about a smaller quake along the Inglewood-Newport fault line that runs diagonally through the county than a massive, San Andreas temblor, Brown said.

“Prepare for a (Richter Scale measurement of) 5 or 6 just like you do for an 8,” Brown said.

“Store some food, store some water, get some flashlight batteries,” Brown recommended. “Get a plan with your family. Then whatever happens, if Nostradamus is right, fine, we can applaud him and go on with our lives.”

As if there was not enough to worry about, Santa Ana disaster response manager Sharon Frank points out that “because of our proximity, we also are concerned with the Elsinore fault. It’s one people are not well aware of.”

That fault has a potential of an earthquake measuring 6 to 7 on the Richter Scale, Frank said.

Telephone calls from people worried about an earthquake have increased at Frank’s office by about 50% since the Nostradamus movie rehashed his predictions.

Earthquake or not, there is one question not likely to be answered. If this Frenchman really could see into the future, did he know how much commotion he would stir?

Incidentally, Nostradamus is the Latin name used by the astrologer whose French name was Michel de Notredame. Why he chose Latin isn’t exactly clear.

It does seems reasonable, however, that since “Michel” is French for “Michael,” he probably thought his prognostications would be more credible coming from a fellow with a foreign name rather than a guy called Mikey.