Earthquakes and tornadoes

The topic came up last night when Amalia and I were at friends' house for dinner: which is worse to go through, a tornado or an earthquake.

It is an interesting question, and we have different perspectives on it, because one of the party is a native of Iowa and the rest of us grew up in seismicly active country. Tornadoes, while we get them once in a great while (I think the last one in the Bay Area was a waterspout near Richmond about nine years ago), are mostly the stuff of legend: horrifying air dragons that descend out of nowhere to utterly destroy anything they touch.

Earthquakes, on the other hand, are mostly harmless (we have had a few in the last couple of days). Sure, you get that instant knot in your stomach, the "uh-oh, is this the big one?" knot, but you generally can read it pretty quickly.

The worst earthquake experience I had was one that hit when I was in the shower at my inlaws' house. It was a good sized one that damaged the local supermarket, and I had this quick moment of wondering whether I needed to find better cover or not (I opted for staying in the shower). I have been in bigger earthquakes (I lived in Santa Cruz right after the Loma Prieta earthquake), but this was the worst personal situation in one.

The closest I have ever been to a tornado was when a funnel cloud passed over Sacramento and fizzled out before it almost touched down near Stockton. But to see something like that in the sky is a bit nerve-wracking.

Of course as a kid, it was tsunamis that always captured my morbid curiosity (or sneaker waves on a more practical matter - anomalous large waves that are a regular feature of the Pacific Coast near us). The idea of the sea just reaching in farther than usual often haunted my dreams and imagination (usually not in a scary way, though).

The long and short of it is this: nature is dangerous.

Be careful out there.