California quake ordeal haunts alpine resident

PAUL GORMAN/The Press

SURVIVOR: Franz Josef resident Pam Birmingham is prepared for the big one.

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Bleeding heavily and leaving a trail of bloody handprints, teenager Pam Birmingham stumbled to reach her parents' room during a major Californian earthquake.

That was during the 6.6 magnitude February 1971 San Fernando earthquake, which killed 65 people and destroyed two hospitals, two freeway interchanges and a dam across a major reservoir.

Birmingham has now left the San Andreas fault behind.

Instead, she lives in Franz Josef, less than 50 metres from the ticking timebomb Alpine Fault, which scientists believe is due to rupture and generate a magnitude 8 earthquake.

The faultline runs through the middle of the township and underneath its petrol station. It last ruptured about 1717, shunting Westland north by about eight metres.

Birmingham, who manages an accommodation business in Franz Josef, has turned her station wagon into a mobile civil defence emergency kit, planning to hotfoot it out of town at the first sign of the big one.

The forestry graduate and former United States park ranger went to the international earthquake scientists workshop held in Franz Josef last week armed with a list of questions about the Alpine Fault. She got answers to some, but said it was a shame the meeting was not open to the public.

"I had asked if they thought there might be a foreshock, as often there can be. They said probably not in this case. If I knew it was coming and I thought it was best to get out of Franz Josef, which way should I go, north or south, and they said, `don't move'."

Although she had not felt an earthquake in the two years she had been in Franz Josef, she worried every time her house creaked at night.

"It would be a relief to live somewhere other than on top of a fault."

The San Fernando earthquake had been scary but piqued her interest in seismology.

"I woke up as I flew out of bed and hit face down on the ground, getting a bloody nose. I remember trying to run down the hallway to my parents' room and the shaking was still going on. I was holding on to the walls and I left these bloody handprints all the way down the hall. It was like a horror movie."

Her car contains sleeping bags, pillows, food and water, cat food, a first-aid kit, a wind-up torch, lantern, batteries and a transistor radio.

"It could be a home for a while. Unless the earthquake was so bad the car slipped sideways, but I would hope a car on rubber tyres would just bounce."

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