TSUNAMI WARNING

Sometimes, when you go back to places that you’ve been before they can seem much the same as when you last saw them. Sometimes they can be far shabbier and, quite often, they can seem much smaller (if it was somewhere you spent a lot of time with as a small child for example) or far less impressive than the image being stored in your memories.

On other occasions you might find out that they’ve changed beyond all recognition. As an example of that rather peculiar phenomenon, a few years ago I happened to be in the vicinity of a building in which I used to work for about seven years or more, and to which I drove for pretty much every working day in those years. At that point, I’d not been back for about five years and the area was almost unrecognisable. Superstores and blocks of flats had sprung up all around it and it took me a moment to realise that I was already passing that once familiar place that I had known so well.

So, you might very well be asking, what has that all got to do with the theme of today’s little topic of rather one-sided debate that I am supposed to be presenting to you with as much of an air of humbleness as I can muster?

Well, to be honest, not much, but it’s nice to have some sort of a lead-in, however oblique it might be.

Anyway, as I have continually harped on about in recent weeks, I recently had cause to revisit the California coast and, as with many coastlines, it rather deceptively remained pretty much as I remembered it; The crashing waves, the spectacular scenery, yada, yada, yada... Obviously I rather wisely use the word “deceptively” here to qualify that statement because, as any geologist worth his salt would tell you, the coastlines are in a continuous state of flux and motion and it is only our puny little human minds and “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” lifespans that make us think that everything is, as the oxymoron goes, “rock solid”.

However, this time around, I saw something that I hadn’t seen before, something that had obviously come as a bit of a new development after the 2004 tragedy in the South Pacific; There were a number of rather alarming little plaques dotted about near to the coast whenever you stopped to look at places, and it was the fact that these little metal plaques had started to appear here and there, attached to the walls and fences of the various viewpoints and landmarks dotted up and down the coast, that made everything seem just that little bit different to how it had been before.

It can be a glorious day and you can be drinking in the truly breath-taking scenery when you come upon one of these terribly sobering and yet, unfortunately, highly necessary signs and it can quite dampen the spirits when you start to think about where you actually are and quite how vulnerable you might actually be.

If you turn around and look behind you at the vast open plain behind you, standing between you and any high ground that there might be, you might suddenly think “bugger” and start making your way discreetly back towards the car, “just in case”.

Not, of course, that it would probably be of much real use to actually do so, but the thought is there. Then, of course, the moment passes and you get on with your “touristy” activities, but the cold hand of doom has softly stroked your spinal column and the day never really feels quite the same after that.

Not that, of course, in most instances, a little metal sign is going to be likely to make one jot of difference to the outcome if such a dreadful event was actually to occur, but it makes us feel as if someone is doing something, even if we’re not quite sure what use that “something” actually is. We humans do sometimes like to think that we have some kind of control over the forces of nature, and when that nature then laughs back in our faces, we still managed to be surprised at it.

“Men* plan. God** laughs.”

But then, that’s one of the funny things about America. So long as the authorities who are responsible for the place you find yourself standing in, on or next to have covered themselves legally, everyone’s happy... Well, perhaps not exactly “happy” as such, but at least fairly convinced that somebody somewhere has thought about the problem, addressed it and dealt with it. After that, if you do happen to find yourself being swept away by a huge tidal wave on the California coast, you’ve probably only got yourself to blame and it’s therefore highly unlikely that you or your surviving family would be able to successfully sue their asses... (or indeed any other of their animals...).

And ultimately it does seem to all come down to that small matter of legal responsibility. Those little notices absolving whomsoever from whatsoever amount of responsibility are simply everywhere and it really doesn’t seem plausible to the people you see walking about the place that even the most terrible potential acts of nature, or those things we used to call “accidents”, could possibly happen as a random act of chance. But if they do, then it must be somebody’s fault and, if it is somebody’s fault then they really, really should be made to pay for it.

After all, if you hit mother nature where it really hurts, in her pocket, maybe she won’t try doing that sort of thing again...

Now, what are the chances of that...?

* or whatever gender definition you choose to define yourself by.

**or whatever else you happen to believe in.