The Big Shake

As we all know by now, there was a moderate earthquake Tuesday night near Milpitas. It's been a while since we have had a sizeable quake in the Bay Area. I noticed several things shortly after the quake which concerns me. The most concerning thing to me was the level of reaction people had to the quake. I think people overreacted to Tuesday's situation, causing traffic jams, clogging cell phone airwaves with frivilous calls, and spreading fear for no reason.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that people are becoming incresingly sensitive to these kinds of incidents. I saw a story today in the SJ Mercury which reported a loss in cell phone service to a large amount of people in the South Bay in the 2 hours following the quake, which apparently has sparked outrage. It seems to me that people are setting unrealistic expectations on wireless companies which exist to provide customers with an everyday convenience, not a disaster-proof survival device. Of course there is going to be a surge in calls after an incident such as an earthquake! These companies don't have the ability to maintain the capacity to handle spikes in traffic such as what happened Tuesday because it would cost so much, their business would go bankrupt. The best thing anyone can do to is have a plan of action ready in case a disaster happens which includes dealing with a total loss of electricity, TV, and phone services. It's crazy how dependent people are on modern creature comforts and how helpless they are if it's taken away.