Nothing so powerfully grabs the attention of those who daily report earth-shaking news as feeling their own earth shake. When Monday's quake hit in the vicinity of the San Fernando Valley in California, it was also in the vicinity of Bernard Shaw, Frank Sesno, Charles Bierbauer and a platoon of lesser known luminaries of Cable News Network.
It was 7:31 a.m. on the East Coast. CNN had its regular morning business report on the air when it was interrupted by "Breaking News." CNN was apologetic that so many of its nationally known reporters were congregated in the vicinity of Los Angeles to attend a convention. They needn't have apologized; there is nothing like having your top people at the scene of a story. Bernard Shaw's voice was shaky as he was the first to report, from his hotel room, that he had been and was still being shaken. This wasn't someone else's earth-shaking news, this was his own. He felt and you heard the shakes.The degree of professionalism was impressive. Shaw, awakened from his sleep, knew he was part of a big story and grabbed the phone to report it. Bob Cain, safely minding the store in Atlanta, knew it was big and interrupted the regular programming to cover it. Less than 10 minutes after the quake hit, people across the land were sharing, vicariously, the terror of an earthquake in California.
It was not "The Big One," the earthquake that seismologists predict will tear some day along the great San Andreas fault that runs the length of the state of California. This one was caused by the movement of the earth along a fault so minor that it didn't even have a name. It doesn't have to be the big one to be terrifying when it's under your feet. Walter Hayes, of the U.S. Geological Survey, has been studying earthquakes for 22 years. He said this one "could not have come at a better time." From the point of view of our Geological Survey, the place to be when an earthquake hits is home in bed. He also said California is as well-prepared as any place to handle an earthquake. Perhaps, but it didn't appear prepared. There must be a faster way to turn off water and gas when the mains burst. There is no way to prepare yourself for the day when the earth moves under your feet.
The sight of a blaze from a broken gas main within a few feet of a geyser from a broken water main in an area where all lighting had been lost was awesome. The behavior of some of the humans in the same area was awful. Pranksters called CNN purporting to have important news only to reveal an ugly determination to add to the confusion. Just an hour and a half after the earthquake hit came the first reports of looting.
California has been a disaster area too often recently. The economy, which had enjoyed a boom from its major defense industries during the Cold War, suffered a corresponding collapse as defense spending was cut back. It has had terrible wildfires followed by mudslides. Watching the dawn come over the scenes of fire, collapsed bridges and closed freeways on Monday gave those who live elsewhere reason to give thanks.
Our ability to gather and disseminate news has far surpassed our ability to comprehend it. What government officials give us as news is always to some degree propaganda, information put forth in a manner to make bad news less ominous, good news more triumphant, spun to the benefit of the person or agency transmitting the information. There was something refreshingly true about CNN's coverage of the California earthquake: a cameraman so excited his own fingers partially covered his lens, an experienced anchor whose voice shook as he broke the story of the disaster.
No matter how experienced they are in talking learnedly and objectively about events in Russia or Somalia or Bosnia, there is a different quality to the story when they feel the earth shake.