January 17, 1994, at 4:31 a.m., as Californians were nuzzled in their beds, the Northridge Earthquake erupted throughout the West San Fernando Valley. A magnitude 6.7 quake caused by the sudden rupture of a previously undocumented blind thrust fault was the highest ever instrumentally recorded in an urban area in North America. Thousands of Angelinos woke to a nightmarish frenzy.

By the time the sun began to rise, the impact of the quake was indeterminable. Portions of the Santa Monica freeway were damaged, cars were discovered among the rubble from the collapse of Interstate-5, a total of 466 fires occurred that Monday (some from the eruption of natural gas mains and valves), and structural damage ranging from apartment buildings to historic structures like the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum were beyond apparent.  The quake killed more than 60, injured more than 9,000, and caused over $20 billion in damage.

A blind thrust earthquake occurs along a thrust line that does not show signs on the Earth’s surface. Scientists had found several faults running through California yet, completely unaware of a fault thrust running through Northridge. First responders were quickly mobilized to respond to the myriad of issues unforeseen just moments earlier. Through coordinated response efforts, the City of Los Angeles quickly began to provide clean water, shelters, assist with traffic, fight fires, and restore power.

Rail service was briefly interrupted with Amtrak, and expanded Metrolink service resuming in stages in the days after the quake. The interruptions to road transport caused Metrolink to experiment with service to Camarillo in February and Oxnard in April. Those lines continue today as the Ventura County Line and extended the Antelope Valley Line almost ten years ahead of schedule. Six new stations opened in six weeks.

In this time of profound societal disruption, the blind thrust earthquakes disguised as politics, racism, climate change, Covid-19 and variants, White Christian Nationalism (to name a few) has revealed we are not going to return to the “Before Times” anytime soon. Have you ever experienced an earthquake? When I was in first grade, I was walking to school when the 1965 quake rocked Seattle. I was walking with two friends; we had no idea what was happening. We made motions as if riding a horse during the shaking. We didn’t realize what had happened until we arrived at school. Then again, in 2001, my son was only three years old. I remember grabbing him and holding him in a door jamb until the shaking stopped. Both in 1965 and 2001, I remember watching the devastation that evening on the news.

When the shaking stops and the ground halts, the unrestrained process of upheaval, trembling, and eroding, becomes time to make sense of the damage. Our societal shaking is not over.

I was hospitalized for eight days while cardiologists tried to assess the damage that had come about through a prolonged year of personal shaking and rupture. The treatment for my condition is an implant with three wires that help my heartbeat. By the time I went home, my heart’s EF (ejection fraction) was at 20%. They told me I had to be very careful, to not push myself. I could barely breathe; walking from the car into my house took all my energy. My world had been shaken to the core, and now it was time to assess the damage.

When change is forced upon us, rapidly confronting our fears and anxieties, not certain what the future holds, is both scary and unpredictable. Can we now begin to look at where there is opportunity in the midst of destruction? In the Northridge story, they extended rail service ten years ahead of schedule. I sense the Spirit is at work in the midst of our societal quakes, hovering, brooding, and birthing.