The odds against a major earthquake happening on the day I arrive in central California to write about earthquakes are approximately 8,030 to 1.
If only I were a betting man. It hits at 10:15 a.m. on September 28, 2004, as I am biting into a breakfast bar, waiting in a trailer at the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth. The project is using an oil-drilling rig to bore deep into the infamous fault, allowing geophysicists to plant instruments at the precise spot where earthquakes begin. At first I think the rig, roughly 100 yards from the trailer, is making the ground vibrate, but soon the trailer’s floor is juking and jiving beyond all reason.
“Oh my God, it’s an earthquake!” shouts geophysicist Naomi Boness, clutching her desk. I appreciate the professional confirmation.
The quake lasts 10 seconds—10 really, really long seconds. It is shaky, rumbly, scary, and bad enough to have flattened bad housing and killed some people if it had struck a city. Here in rural, earthquake-ready central California, it just knocks out power for a few hours, topples a couple of chimneys, and breaks some bottles at a local winery. Nobody is hurt, but the quake is a once-in-a-lifetime thrill ride for roughneck Tim Camargo, who is working atop the drilling rig when it hits. “What did I feel? I felt a whole lotta shakin,’ ” he says after quickly climbing down. “It was magnified about 10 times up there.”
Everything becomes a bit nutty after that. The quake is felt over a 500-mile-long area, so a whole slew of local news media rapidly converge on the tiny town of Parkfield, population 18, which is about eight miles from both the earthquake’s epicenter and the drill site. I drive there and count 13 live-TV trucks on the dusty street. Television reporters try to put tough, in-your-face questions to Stephen Hickman, the U.S. Geological Survey geophysicist who is one of the observatory’s chief investigators.
