The White Noise of Disaster Alarms

Born a third-generation Angeleno and raised in the Girl Scout tradition, earthquake-preparedness was my middle name -- at least until recently. Lately, I have been surprised at how blase I felt about the ever-impending “big one.” And I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way.

I wasn’t like this in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis. The Catholic school nuns required us to keep some essentials and a favorite stuffed animal handy in the cupboard in our classroom in case we had to evacuate. And we were ready; we practiced on the fourth Friday of every month, when the siren sounded at 10 a.m. sharp. And it seemed all too real as we hunkered down under desks, fingers locked across the back of our necks, knees tucked under, followed by our somber single-file parade into the long hallway, where we faced the wall and recited Hail Marys.

Since then, all these disaster plans seem less urgent, just rehearsals. Once I had children, I thought they too should be prepared -- especially after I witnessed a co-worker ripping the phone out of the wall and running down the stairwell with it during an earthquake in 1976. (Was he going to make a sales call? This was before we all had cellphones.)

So I dutifully purchased the earthquake survival kits, complete with granola bars. I dashed my daughters’ Christmas morning expectations one year with my gift to the family: the fireescape ladder.

I had the perfect chance for a real-life drill when we experienced a major quake in the ‘80s and I jumped out of the shower to hustle everyone from beds to the front-door frame just as the shaking stopped to reveal to the street my family huddled in safety -- with me stark naked.

Years have passed, and now, as in the case of the boy who cried “wolf,” I have heard the warnings, however valid, too many times. Whenever the rising whistle from the San Onofre nuclear power plant signals the portent of possible doom, I know all too well that it is the alarm being tested and not my survival skills. Every time this happens, I casually remind myself to rummage through the drawer for instructions should the vapor cloud actually cover us some fine day. But I never seem to get to it.

And recently, when my girlfriend called to direct me to the television station that was broadcasting an Orange County tsunami warning, my reaction was, “Is this a joke?” As my now-adult daughter fearfully turned to me for direction, I, the queen of the quintessential plan, was in a complete state of denial.

I realized then that the continual drama of disaster is anesthetizing; I am numb from the sheer number of warnings. Every raindrop is a “storm watch,” every brush fire a “firestorm.”

Although I agree that we’re better safe than sorry, I can’t believe I won’t always be safe. I am under-rehearsed for disaster partly because my life is over-alarmed. I stopped listening about the same time I became simply annoyed with the neighbors’ house alarms sounding in the middle of the night, rather than concerned that there might be an intruder. Between the heralding from cellphones, pagers, watches and now even luggage, the red flags have become nothing but white noise.

I have to hand it to the Laguna Beach couple who, while enjoying their morning coffee at the kitchen table, immediately recognized the Earth’s groan last month and escaped their sliding home in time. I no doubt would have chalked up the sound to creaking floorboards and sipped my morning java all the way down to the bottom of Bluebird Canyon. I guess it’s going to have to shake, rattle and roll me over before I know it’s really real.