CA Disaster Anniversary Cluster

Today is the middle day in a three-day cluster of notable anniversaries of disasters or significant natural history events in California history. Here are the events in descending order:

JUNE 27th

1966 M6.0 Parkfield Quake  

1990 Painted Cave Fire  

1990 College Hills Fire

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JUNE 28th

1991 Sierra Madre Quake

1992 Landers Earthquake

1992 Big Bear Earthquake

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June 29th

1925 Santa Barbara Earthquake

Painted Cave Fire 29th Anniversary

Earlier this evening marked the 29th anniversary of the Painted Cave Fire in Santa Barbara County. Unusually powerful Sundowner winds (hurricane force winds + 109° F by 7 p.m.) combined with the evil in men's hearts to create a firestorm which killed one woman and destroyed 427 buildings and scorched 4,900 acres. Above is a 25th anniversary segment on the local TV news station that aired in 2015.

Picture of the Day - Salinas River Bedrock Mortar

Today after attending a memorial service, I accompanied my buddy Mike and his brother-in-law Joe out for a hike at East Santa Margarita Lake where I captured this image of a bedrock mortar on the rock formations on the hill at the junction of Toro Creek and the Salinas River. Photo by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).

Channel Surfing the Northridge Quake

Twenty-three years ago this morning the M6.7 Northridge Earthquake slammed the Los Angeles Basin killing 57 people. This is a mash-up of recorded live coverage from various television news outlets. This is how I experienced the earthquake that morning, flipping from television station to station and even recording it much as this person did. However,  my VHS cassettes are not digitized and saved to Youtube... yet. I watched some of these same live segments replayed here. This is Part One of a series of twenty-four such segments with links to the next-in-sequence appearing on the player on this blog page after the video ends AND being at right of the video player on the corresponding Youtube page for this video if one goes there. Someday in in the not-too-distant future we will be doing this again for another SoCal quake. Be prepared!

Loma Prieta Quake Remembrance In Five Images

I find it nearly unfathomable that it was 27 years ago today that the Loma Prieta Earthquake and the then-concurrent 1989 World Series pitting the San Francisco Giants against their crosstown rivals the Oakland Athletics. Where has the time gone? That was the defining disaster of my coming of age and yet nearly nobody I'm going to school with at Cal Poly and certainly nobody I am teaching at Atascadero High School was even yet born when all that happened. I feel both old and timeless in a contradictory hibridity I cannot adequately put into words.

I still remember CNN Sports Tonight's Fred Hickman referring to the 1989 World Series as "Bays Ball."

I have one or two original copies of this newspaper stored somewhere on the premises.

I have added this location to my bucket list of places in California I wish to visit.
Photo by Fogcat5/Creative Commons.

My Cal Poly Day

Today I had the honor of participating in the annual Cal Poly Day at Swanton Pacific Ranch near Davenport, CA, in coastal Santa Cruz County. My friend Ted Weber is the head architect at the site and invited our mutual friend Marty Self and myself to join him for the occasion. All three of us are graduates of Cal Poly SLO. The ranch here was bequeathed to Cal Poly by an alumni, Al Smith, who transformed Orchard Supply Hardware into what it has become before selling it to another company. He liked railroads and bought up all the various remaining parts of the Overfair Railroad that was created for the Pan-Pacific International Exhibition in San Francisco. He then relocated it to the ranch and set up there on a new 1/3 scale railroad system which he christened the Swanton Pacific Railroad which we were able to ride on today. We also took a tour of Smith's simple yet functional home which our host Ted has designed the additions and enhancements to as well as other structures on the property either upgraded or built anew with more such projects here on the way.
*Note: this property and the surrounding area provided timber for lumber used to rebuild San Francisco and environs following the 1906 Earthquake & Fire.

Today was the first time I experienced any sort of sense of honor or privilege from being an alumni of Cal Poly and it was kinda cool.

A couple of Cal Poly coeds sawing competitively.

While we waited for our train ride there were things to watch or look at like this old jeep.....

.... and some old cars being looked at by two old men.

All aboard!

This was the turn-around point of the ride with the engine moving up to pull the train back to the station the other direction.

Marty gellin' like a felon.

Al Smith's residence (with Ted Weber-designed upgrades and additions).

I have a thing for curio cabinets and was immediately drawn to Smith's cabinets.

Ohlone Indian artifacts from the ranch and vicinity. 

More Ohlone Indian artifacts from the ranch and vicinity. 

I still remember the Lockheed Fire monitoring it from afar at the time but didn't realize it burned 1,100 acres of the ranch.

The burn area of the Lockheed Fire is still visible around the ranch as seen here from the area of the rail station. 

This beautfiul covered patio area is adjacent to the Smith House and overlooks the Pacific Ocean.

Our friend Ted Weber designed the structure. 

He also designed this beautiful barbecue structure. 

Marty pointed out this is a "Weber" grill in the truest sense. 

I felt like the odd man out not wearing a Hawaiian shirt today while hanging out with my church home group home boys which was all the more ironic given I have been an avid Hawaiian shirt aficionado for much of my adult life. 

All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved). 

La La Land's Architectural Rememberer in Miniature

I can't explain why I find this documentary short so compelling and perhaps even a bit haunting. Perhaps it is the skill of the documentarian Matthew Arnold-Ladensack and the score by Rhian Sheehan or perhaps it is the history being discussed or perhaps is the story of the miniature-maker-turned-amateur-historian Gerald William Cox. Probably it is a bit of each. Watch and enjoy!

LA // 1:87 from Humanity Pictures on Vimeo.

Graphic of the Day - California Wildfire Changes

The sheer volume of evidence for climate change is so overwhelming and can be seen in so many different subject areas that it boggles the mind that there remain deniers. I would imagine that in most cases they are ignorant of facts such as those reflected in the graphic above. Some deniers will try to attribute the larger fires to poor forest management but half these fires burned in primarily brush or in one case, rangeland. We have the best understanding of fire ever, the best equipment, the best-trained firefighters, the best emergency management and yet our civilization is getting its ass kicked every year by wildfire and it is getting worse as we fall further behind the curve due to the changes taking place in the natural environment year in and year out in recent decades.

Hollister Adobe 2016

Today I joined my history mentor Dennis Judd to a Cuesta College Board of Trustees meeting on the main campus in unincorporated San Luis Obispo (SLO) between SLO and Morro Bay in the shadow of both Cerro Romauldo and Hollister Peak. We attended this otherwise boring kabuki in order for Judd to "prepresent" along with other activists the interests of the future of the historic Hollister Adobe located on the campus adjacent to Camp San Luis from which the campus was carved. Before and after the meeting we visited the old structure and snapped a few images.

Southwest corner view of Hollister Adobe.

Grinding mortars formed from a serpentine boulder located adjacent to the adobe.

This corner was probably never 100% perfectly shaped even when new and the years since have not helped matters.
All photos by Kim Patrick Noyes (all rights reserved).