Re: [Leica] Ferndale

["Gary Todoroff" <datamaster@humboldt1.com>]

> From: Jim Brick 
> 
> Aahhh Ferndale. The earthquake capitol of northern California. Beautiful
> place. Take a LARGE HEAVY tripod. ;-)
> 
> Jim
> 
> and from Jeff S who likes Ferndale's Curley's Restaurant, too. . .

Yes indeed. I have photos of the coastline southwest of Ferndale just after
the three big quakes a few years ago. For 10 miles, the rocks were totally
black from dying seaweed where the whole coast line had actually risen
three or four feet and all the plants had died. Made for some great
tidepooling!

Friends of mine were in Petrolia (25 miles from Ferndale) at the epicenter
when the first quake hit. The husband had to crawl out of the general store
on his hands and knees as canned food rained down on him from the shelves.
The wife was trying to just hold onto the chair on the front porch that was
trying to buck her out of it. Then the fire started.

The volunteer fire dept was right next door, but the doors had jammed shut,
so they couldn't get to the pumper truck. As the fire spread toward the
gasoline pumps, they retreated up a hill and watched the whole building
burn down. The lady from the post office was still nursing her bruises from
when she had run out of her door, not knowing that the quake had knocked
down the stairs she expected to still be there.

Later that night, the next big quake hit. My father-in-law was a Caltrans
foreman, inspecting the US 101 bridge crossing the Eel River at Rio Dell.
He could watch blue earthquake lights and the entire bridge undulating in
large waves as he thought about the river 100 feet below. Fortunately the
bridge survived. Unfortunately, at the other end of the bridge  the center
of the town of Scotia didn't. Burst gas pipes started the shopping center
on fire and the main business part of town burned to the ground.

Then the third one hit. All within about 24 hours, each was a separate
earthquake of about 7.0 magnitude, not the piddley little 5.0 aftershocks,
which sometimes scare you more, because you don't know what they are going
to turn into again. By this time, you figured that the earth was jelly, so
just watch what you sit under, and don't set your cameras or any other
valuable on a shelf more than one foot above the floor. Lately I've getting
complacent. Shame on me - just across the room, an M2 with Visoflex II,
bellows and 90mm Elmarit is sitting close the edge of a counter (and you
thought this post was off-topic!).

So anyone still want to do a photo seminar near Eureka? Actually, the
Midwest seems to get as much damage and far more loss of life in one month
of tornadoes than we get in 20 years of earthquakes.

So if you've seen our Lost Coast several years ago, well come back again.
It's changed.

Gary Todoroff
Eureka, CA