Whoa, did you just feel something?

Last Sunday, I was in a record store when I thought I felt an earthquake. This lasted (the thought, I mean) less than three seconds, at which point I went back to hunting for used CDs in the angry-chick alt-rock and/or British-dude-oh-what-does-it-all-mean genres, both of which I find to be adrenaline-producing while running on the treadmill.

That same day, on the front page of the California section of The Times, there was a story about a UCLA professor who has predicted a 50% chance that “a magnitude 6.4 or larger earthquake will strike somewhere in a 12,000-square-mile swath of the Southern California desert by Sept. 5.”

The man behind the prediction, Vladimir Keilis-Borok, and his international research team also had the correct general forecast on the quake that killed two people in Paso Robles last December and a larger one in Japan that also struck last year.

I’m one of those people who reads “12,000-square-mile swath” and “Southern California desert” and thinks, “OK, I won’t panic until I read that the guy’s predicting a major earthquake sometime before Sept. 5 in the aisle where I buy trail mix at my neighborhood Trader Joe’s.”

This is, of course, the typical coping mechanism of a Californian (OK, and self-absorption. And an abnormal fondness for trail mix). But it’s natural. Here in L.A., we haven’t had a major quake since Northridge, in ’94.

Then too, all the hubbub over color-coded terrorism alerts has stolen some of the earthquake terror alert’s thunder. Hmm, 50% chance, is that orange or mauve? Should I be reporting suspicious activity?

In fact, until I thought I felt a little tremor last Sunday and read about professor Keilis-Borok, disastrous earthquakes had dropped precipitously on my List of Things to Be Paranoid About. I mean, who has the psychic time to think about quakes when the government and the media have been so busy telling us to be wary of flying, traveling in foreign lands, traveling on native soil during specific holiday seasons, specific foreigners, nonspecific foreigners, nonspecific foreigners traveling during specific holiday seasons, bombs bursting, poison mail and, of course, Michael Jackson?

Pity the earthquake. We fear you, earthquake, we still do, we really do. Just not as much. The trouble, earthquake, is that unlike terrorism alerts and most terror events, you are free of political motivation. We can’t hate you or demonize you, even if we’re sometimes just as woefully ignorant about what causes you to act up. And so, until President Bush calls the San Andreas fault an evil-doer, I’m afraid it’s going to be an uphill climb getting back to your once-vaunted, fear-inducing status.

What you need, it seems to me, is some good PR, and to that end, bravo on the upcoming NBC miniseries “10.5.”

“10.5,” which the network is putting on the air May 2 and 3, a ratings sweeps period, flies in the face of all that rhetoric several years ago about how the networks were going to be sensitive about blowing up iconic U.S. structures for fun and profit. I guess that was then and this is now. In “10.5,” a series of earthquakes, like the series of plane attacks on Sept. 11, strikes the West Coast, first outside Seattle (the Space Needle topples), then in Redding, then in San Francisco (hasta la vista, Golden Gate Bridge).

As Night 1 ends, the entire coastline of California is scheduled to be swallowed up by the sea, the governor is either dead or missing, Kim Delaney is still wearing the same tight-fitting shirt, and, despite all the debating about what to do as the head of FEMA, Fred Ward’s hair still hasn’t moved.

Beau Bridges plays the president; in the middle of the unfolding crisis, he says tight-jawed things like “My people come first, John,” and “Get me Nolan.” He reschedules a meeting with the German leader

On the one hand, the film is too cheesy to be anything but fun at the expense of a favorite target -- California. As Dr. Stuart Fischoff, professor of media psychology at Cal State L.A. notes of “10.5”: “It has all the earmarks of Sodom and Gomorrah, of God smiting the West Coast.”

So the good news for the earthquake is that it’s deriving some chatter again. In the last week I thought I felt one, read about the prediction of one and, finally, watched a piece of trash TV fantasizing about several horrific ones. So congratulations, earthquake. Your paranoia stock is rising. You’ve blown past Michael Jackson and poison mail, and are about to overtake random bombings. If things keep up this way, I may even start to travel on Arbor Day.

Paul Brownfield can be reached at paul.brownfield@latimes.com.