[img]96|left|||no_popup[/img] Dateline Jerusalem — After an uneventful 15½-hour non-stop flight from Tel Aviv, thank G-d, I have arrived back in California in time for an earthquake off the coast of Malibu. I must admit I was so exhausted by the time I landed in Los Angeles I did not even feel the quake. Or I have become complacent. Quakes tend to follow me wherever I go. I once thought of moving to New York. One year when I went for a visit, there was an extremely rare quake with the epicenter under the mayor's mansion in New York City. I decided to move to Israel. Within a couple of months of moving there, I experienced three small quakes and learned that Israel was expecting the Big One just as California was overdue for its Big One. The location of the major fault line in Israel is similar to that of the San Andreas fault in California. There are many similarities between Israel and California.

I remember small quakes from when I was a child in Los Angeles, usually manifesting themselves by waves in our swimming pool that overflowed onto our patio. But the first scary quake I experienced was when I was a student at UCLA. I lived on the 10th floor of a 15-story dormitory built to sway in earthquakes. Needless to say when the quake hit at 6 a.m., my bed, with me in it, went from one side of the room to the other. I have been frightened of quakes ever since.

I had a friend who was a police officer in England. She was brave, not afraid of anything. She was able to handle perps without a gun. In those days cops did not carry guns in England. She was one of the first bobbies to be issued a weapon there. When I was a cop, she and I met as members of the International Police Assn. Every year she came to California to visit me. One year she arrived the day of a damaging quake in Whittier. She was so frightened that she refused to leave the airport until she could get a flight back home to London the next day. She never has been back.

At least in California, buildings must comply with earthquake building codes, like my old dormitory. Homes are made of wood framing that gives during a quake. In Israel, the buildings are made of concrete blocks, which are bound to crumble during a major quake. Some newer high-rises are earthquake proof. Most of the apartments in my city are concrete structures built above narrow concrete posts that remind me of men walking on stilts at a circus. Not a comforting thought.

As an attorney, I was offered a great job. But it meant on a daily basis I would have to travel quite a distance over a four-level freeway overpass. I turned down the position because I thought that the freeway would collapse during an earthquake and I would be stranded from my children. Everyone thought I was crazy to give up the opportunity to work for this firm because of my fear of earthquakes. Sure enough, a few years later that four-level freeway collapsed in a quake.

Just as I did in California, in Israel I keep earthquake supplies, such as plenty of bottles of water, dried beef jerky and foil packages of tuna, first aid equipment, toilet paper, flashlights, extra clothes and a radio. Of course, in Israel they also serve as emergency supplies along with the Israeli issued gas mask. I was a Girl Scout. Our motto was “Be Prepared.”

L'hitraot. Shachar.