Nostradamus and the Big Quake

I’m sure glad that, by some remarkable fluke of coincidence, no earthquake occurred on May 10.

If Southern California had been rocked by even a moderate temblor, I’m afraid that millions of citizens would now feel that the recent misinterpreted forecasts of Nostradamus, writing 400 years ago, were indeed validated.

This would have set the legitimate science of seismology back 100 years and proved a tremendous obstacle to ongoing, diligent efforts by public agencies in their sane and sound earthquake awareness and preparation campaigns.

Had a quake occurred, a senseless mass hysteria might have erupted. Such a superstitious and voodoo public panic and pandemonium would take decades to wind down.

And what a boon this timely quake would have proved to charlatan prognosticators, pseudo-psychics, amateur astrologers, and other misguided mystics and quasi-psychologists that have been capitalizing on the hype they’ve helped produce.

The personal, social and financial disasters of such a quake would have been bad enough; but the emotional and psychological disaster would have been much greater had we Californians shaken on May 10.

HERB WETENKAMP III

San Clemente