Hi Don & All,

As of a few minutes ago there had been 695 aftershocks from the San Simeon earthquake and the rest of the area has become so quiet. Kind of reminds one of a vacuum with all of the Earth's energy being sucked up.

Looking at the damage from this quake it reminded me that five years ago the City of Petaluma set a ten-year time limit for all city unreinforced masonry buildings to be retrofitted. They also created a one million-dollar loan fund to help the business building owners pay for the retrofit work. It is a total success. You can hardly drive by any of the older buildings and not see the retro-bolts coming out of the front or the sides. I still don't have a lot of confidence for the parapets on the top of the buildings, but at least the big walls won't be falling on any cars.

Paso Robles and that area in general does not have a good tax base for a program that could have mirrored Petaluma's. It is a place which has a prime focus on farming and vineyards. Thus, they had no money for any prevention work and not unlike Santa Cruz from the Loma Prieta quake suffered a similar fate. There are a few things in life we cannot do anything about and retrofitting in some cases is that way.

While our new Governor Arnold was out stating he was getting funding to put the business community back together, they will find what they need will most likely not arrive. This is the part of the earthquake story which few know about or wish to acknowledge. There are limits on funding and most people have to qualify for a loan to get it. Usually the funding is far short of what is needed or the business owners can't qualify for the loan. In a ten-year review after Loma Prieta, the City of Santa Cruz had a considerable number of empty lots with no expectation of any rebuilding to come in the near future.

At the time the San Simeon quake rolled through I was on the phone discussing a rate increase for earthquake insurance with a client. He's not so ready to give it up yet. And for those residing in the five counties surrounding the epicenter, earthquake insurance is not available for 30 days.

How many of you or your family members know how to use a fire extinguisher?

Petra

• The Seismic Safety Zone