The Four Horsemen Unhorsed

Something strange is afoot in California. Nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants even to think about it. Still, it cannot be denied. What is happening quite simply is this: Nothing.

No killer earthquakes.

No apocalyptic wildfires.

No riots.

No floods.

No drought.

No towering infernos.

No runaway freights.

No crop-ravaging infestations.

Nothing.

A strange calm has befallen California. More than seven months have elapsed since the last mega-disaster. This might not seem like much of a reprieve, but consider: Over the previous four years, the state endured calamities worthy of federal disaster designation on an average of one every four months. Looking back now, they tend to run together--the Oakland fires of late 1991, the Southland floods four months later, the Humboldt quakes, the Rodney King unrest, Landers-Big Bear, Shasta, the winter deluge of ‘93, the Southern California firestorm, the Northridge quake, the January floods. . . . Add to these a stubborn drought, a killer freeze, several cropland infestations and the Doris Allen speakership and, well, the point is made.

And now, nothing.

What a mess.

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The politically ambitious already have grasped the grave implications of this drought of calamities. The four-year onslaught provided office-seekers large and small with a sure-fire campaign device: Disaster aid. With every fire, flood or temblor would come waves of elected officials in hastily procured outerwear, standing before the cameras to announce their intent to shovel vast sums of relief dollars at the stricken. While big fish like Wilson and Clinton were pledging to deliver the big bucks, the little fish who swim the waters of local politics would stand to the side, beaming. Their work was done. They had delivered the big fish. Ah, it was so simple, so clean. And now what?

To be honest, this is a question that also has begun to haunt newspaper editors and television news directors. Yes, Devil Media did not fare so poorly when the four horsemen came calling. Certainly, there always was something exciting to report. Lately, without any significant disaster, it’s been all O.J. or nothing--a close call. The national press in particular has felt the pinch. This year provided a wildfire on Long Island, a few Florida hurricanes and so forth, but it’s not the same. Elsewhere, a twister is a twister, a flood a flood. In California, a disaster offers something more sublime to the roaming press. It’s a story with a moral, evidence of how badly the lotus people have offended the Great Maker and Shaker. Look, sinner! See what greed and foolishness and breast implants and convertibles will get you! An earthquake, that’s what. Or so they say in all the papers.

Finally, the economy is bound to suffer. Rebuilding cities--fallen, burned out, swept away or other--has been a major growth industry in California since 1991. Many serious economists credited the Northridge Quake with stanching the regional recession. Look at it like this: Every time the government doles out $15,000 to repair a broken home, another contractor drives home in a new pickup. And consider the cottage industries--the peddlers of bottled water, flashlights and batteries. Empirical evidence suggests the time most people buy batteries is on the morning after the night they were needed, and the disaster streak produced many such mornings. In fact, only the insurance industry claims to have been a major loser in all the shaking and burning, to which must be added this observation: The insurance industry never, ever loses.

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The lull, if it holds, promises to take its greatest toll, however, on the collective psyche of Californians. For all the uncertainty they create, disasters also can bring an odd sense of comfort. To run screaming into the night in one’s pajamas is a good way to clear the brain of life’s humdrum concerns. Unpaid bills, overdue auto repairs, untended relationships--all slip away when the floor lurches, or the hillside erupts, or the cat floats by on a 100-year flood. There is calm in chaos.

In a societal sense, it’s pretty much the same. Without any disaster to distract attention, less sensational concerns return to the forefront: A once grand public school system in decay; an economy that, strangely enough, seems to flourish only when jobs are eliminated; a plague of crime that won’t be deterred by political bluster or prison boom. And so on.

All that said, it also should be noted finally that the autumn fire season has opened. Minor fault lines have begun to quiver a bit, north and south. The next water shortage, as always, is but one or two dry winters away. For those who are hooked on the rush of serial disasters there is, in California, always cause for hope. As for everyone else, let’s just keep knocking on wood.