Was California’s Old Faithful trying to warn...

Was California’s Old Faithful trying to warn us?

The Jan. 17 quake didn’t exactly come as a surprise to Olga Kolbeck, even though she lives in northern California. That’s because Kolbeck can see a geyser out her window--California’s version of Old Faithful.

“On Dec. 12, the geyser changed its pattern,” said Kolbeck, a retired schoolteacher in the town of Calistoga. “Normally it erupts about every 40 minutes. But since then, the eruptions have been 1 1/2 hours to 1 3/4 hours apart.”

Kolbeck says the geyser also slowed down just before the Loma Prieta (1989), Morgan Hill (1984) and Oroville (1975) shakers, a finding confirmed by geologists from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C. The scientists feel there may have been a link in those cases.

But Kolbeck isn’t completely sure the geyser was signaling the 6.6 jolt, inasmuch as the epicenter was more than 500 miles to the south. “We’ve also been having a lot of 3.0 quakes up here,” she pointed out.

One theory is that seismic movement may alter cracks deep in the volcanic formation that sits beneath the geyser, trapping the water that normally erupts.

“I wish,” Kolbeck said, “I could see down in there.”

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All-SigAlert radio: Like Old Faithful, KNX-AM radio has changed its pattern. But the all-news station’s switch came after the quake. KNX, which previously issued traffic reports every 10 minutes during its newscasts, has temporarily stepped up the pace to every six minutes.

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Talk about being unprepared for a quake: The Northridge shaker had Chris Christopherson thinking of the 6.3 Long Beach quake of 1933, which struck just before 6 p.m.

Christopherson, a longtime resident of that city, said “there were a lot of cathouses along Anaheim Boulevard and the walls of these places just fell away. A lot of guys were embarrassed to be found with naked girls there.”

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Marching to Georgia: Diane Fradin of West L.A. noticed that one of the books that fell onto her dining room chair during the quake was “Finding Your Best Place to Live in America,” by Dr. Thomas F. Bowman.

A timely subject, she figured. “On Feb. 14,” she adds, “the movers are coming to pick up my stuff and I’m returning to Atlanta.”

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The surest Super Bowl bet of all: After crashing a championship fight in Las Vegas and a Raiders football game in the Coliseum, paraglider James Miller declared a few weeks ago: “Just wait until the Super Bowl.” Well, Tom LaBonge wasn’t surprised when Miller failed to interrupt the game Sunday. “The Georgia Dome,” LaBonge pointed out, “is an indoor stadium.”

miscelLAny:

Historian Bruce Henstell, writing in Westways, notes that Feb. 21, 1887, was a milestone in L.A. history. That’s the day Charity Street was re-christened Grand Avenue because Downtown residents didn’t like the idea they were “living on Charity.”