"A massive earthquake hits Japan, the largest in over a century. But first... Charlie Sheen appears to have reached a settlement with his estranged wife over custody..."
That was the headline on the morning news. Good to see they have their priorities straight.
I honestly just don't get it. When it comes to earthquakes, the people here seem to be willfully dense. It's all that more surprising since the town was almost wiped off the map by one in 1952.
Maybe it's because in the past 50 years most of the population seems to have immigrated from Oklahoma and they seem more concerned with tornados than quakes. Maybe they're just stupid. Or maybe it's because they've made so little investment in infrastructure that there's not much to lose. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the case of the scary dam at Lake Isabella, northeast of town.
The dam was constructed in 1957, five years after the big quake. By all accounts, corners were cut, which is just Standard Operating Procedure for Kern County. The Army Corp of Engineers rates it as probably the most dangerous dam in the country, but no one here seems to take it too seriously. Last year it was discovered that a major "inactive" fault that lies directly under the dam is, in fact, "active". The response here?
"Meh."
If you're looking for a possible investment you might want to look into "lakefront" property south of town because this is what Bako will look like if the dam fails...
This shows our neighborhood under 5 to 10 feet of water. And it's not from the sprinklers.
