No, not Uncle Sam. This time it was the SoCal Great Weather Tax Man. He comes to collect the fees we pay in exchange for having 350 days of sunny 70 degree weather every year. The fees are paid by having to deal with fires, earthquakes, mudslides and sometimes, in the case of unpopular jury verdicts (think Rodney King and O.J.), riots.
I’m too far away from forested areas to worry about fires and too far away from ‘tha hood’ to worry about riots. Therefore my taxes are paid in the form of earthquakes. After ten years of living in L.A. I finally experienced an earthquake large enough to feel. The Northridge quake was four years before I arrived. About six years ago there was a very mild one in the early morning. I slept through it all and I’m a light sleeper so that tells you how insignificant it was. Two years ago there was one around 4pm on a work day. It happened to be raining that day and since my office is window-less I just assumed it was thunder.
Last week we had 5.4 on the Richter scale. I was sitting at my desk and it shook for 15-20 seconds. To be honest I wasn’t scared at all. It actually felt pretty cool. I’m told there’s nothing to worry about until things start falling off the walls, although most people use something called Quake wax to prevent that from happening.
Hopefully the Tax man won’t return for another ten years at least. As for now I feel proud that I’ve done my duty as a good citizen of California but for the record, as a native Atlantan I feared tornadoes much more than I do earthquakes. On average they do more damage and are much more frequent.