The Great Earthquake Debate

There’s this voice in my head. Anyone properly prepared for an earthquake, it says, is just asking to be hit by a truck. An emergency water supply is an invitation to a flood. Once freeways are retrofitted, subway tunnels are certain to collapse. Maybe a hard rain’s gonna fall, but it’s not gonna fall on me. And so on.

There’s this other voice in my head. Wear dirty underwear, it says, and you can count on somehow winding up stripped to your shorts, strapped to an ambulance gurney, in full public view, film at 11. To drive without a spare is to guarantee a blowout. Pass on earthquake insurance today, live in a tent tomorrow. There’s a fault line out there with your name on it, fool: Prepare.

Everyone knows these voices. Sometimes they can sound an awful lot like a grandmother or spouse, a Caltech scientist or sidewalk preacher, Ralph Nader or even James Dean. What is more important, they rage back and forth, an earthquake kit or a good-looking corpse? What good is a battery in a world filled with bullets? These voices articulate a timeless, unresolvable, common and, when regarded from a proper distance, almost comic clash between the internal forces of fatalism and precaution.

In this battle, precaution doesn’t do so well. It tends to prevail only in the aftermath of disaster. Volcano insurance would have been an easy sell right after Pompeii. Lifeboats were popular items after the Titanic. Similarly, after Northridge, Californians have rediscovered earthquake preparedness. This will pass, of course, but in the meantime it’s worth a visit to Frank Wong’s store in this town east of San Francisco.

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The store is called the Earthquake Outlet. There are a few like it in Los Angeles, but up here it stands pretty much alone as a provider of one-stop shopping for every little thing anyone might need post-Big One. Wong stocks, among other items, crowbars; hand-cranked flashlights; abdominal compresses; portable toilets (a camouflaged cardboard job, and a plastic model called “The Throne”); 20-year batteries; solar radios; boxed Canadian water; heat-seeking fire extinguishers; prepackaged survival kits; Swiss Army knives; tow ropes; wire saws; “emergency towels” in a tiny can (“submerge in water for a few seconds/now you have a 100% cotton towel”); foundation anchors; furniture clasps; hard hats; freeze-dried omelets, hash and brownies; triage tags (mark the green box for “minor” injuries, black for “deceased”), and even body bags.

Has anybody ever bought one of these? I asked, pointing to one of the white plastic bags, priced to move at $18.95.

Yes, said Wong. “People buy them to send as presents to friends who are not prepared. You know, like a joke.”

Funny, people.

Wong came to the earthquake trade via real estate. He started the store last April. The earth was still, and business was bad. Wong was losing money, and by early January had begun to make plans to end his lease. Then came the Northridge quake. Then came lines of customers, and television cameras, and more customers. They came because they saw television shots of Angelenos lined up for water, or heard horror stories from Southland relatives caught battery-less in the darkness. The earthquake brought new energy to the old debate within.

“One guy called from Palo Alto,” Wong said, “and talked in a whisper: ‘Do you have earthquake kits? My wife’s upstairs. She kept bugging me to buy an earthquake kit, but I never did. I told her it was in the garage. Now she wants to see it. Can you Fed-Ex me one?’ ”

“It will cost you,” Wong said.

“Fed-Ex it,” the man whispered back.

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Of course, Wong doesn’t expect this to last. Each week that passes post-earthquake, the average profits slip a bit more. He’s not yet back to those dead days of early January, but he’s headed in that direction. The forces of fatalism have regained their footing. On Monday, a young couple were looking over a jumbo earthquake kit on display.

The husband explained it simply “makes sense” to get ready: “Everyone is aware of the dangers that exist . . . and for a nominal amount of money you can be well-prepared.”

“And I say,” said the wife, “that I have managed so far not to be around in any of the big quakes. I’ve always been at the right place and the right time. I’m going to miss it.”

“And I say,” said the husband, “our luck has run out.”

They said goodby and left. They had not made a purchase.

“At least this gives us something to chew on,” the husband said.

“Sure,” the wife said, soothingly. “We can always come back.”

I’d know those voices anywhere.