is ready for a major earthquake. I can believe it. In the five years that I lived there, there were quite a few small ones. One felt like an elephant was rubbing itself up against the house. Another time I was standing in the back yard in Brisbane (yes Brisbane CA) and a bolt of noise shot down the hill. That’s the best way I can describe it. It was as if the hill was made of glass and it had suddenly cracked.
These things weren’t that scary, and it happens all over Southern California on a regular basis. There are two large fault lines, the San Andreas and San Jacinto. These very large tectonic plates are pushing past each other constantly and that’s what causes the earthquakes. You can see the fault lines in the desert in aerial photographs, they’re quite long. 800 miles from the Mendocino Triple Junction offshore in the north to the Salton Sea in the south.
It lies 236 feet below sea level on the San Andreas Fault and covers approximately 318 square miles with a maximum depth of 43 feet. It’s also full of dead fish. It was accidentally created in 1905 when floodwaters from the Colorado River broke through an irrigation canal, flooding the Salton Sink for nearly two years.
People moved there in the 50’s and 60’s and built houses near the shore. As the water gradually evaporated and vanished, this prime real estate was no longer prime and large parts of what was the former shore line is today littered with broken down and abandoned properties. It’s a totally apocalyptic scene in some places. I really like that part of California.
On the way in from Los Angeles near Palm Springs is the San Gorgonio Pass wind farm which came from an idea of generating electricity from wind in the San Gorgonio Pass area. In 1926 Dew R Oliver, the president of the Oliver Electric Power Corporation In 1926 Oliver, in collaboration with an electrician W. Sperry Knighton, built a wind turbine near Whitewater.
The Oliver wind machine became a landmark and curiosity until it was taken down and sold for scrap in 1942
The original device used a generator Oliver had salvaged from an old roller coaster at Seal Beach, California. Oliver and Sperry fitted the generator with aluminum propellers, and placed a large funnel on the front to concentrate the wind’s power. They set the entire device on a circular rail that allowed it to be pivoted to face prevailing winds. It wasn’t too long before the thing burned out, and they replaced it with a bigger unit. The company eventually ran afoul* of Californian security laws and broke up, but it was a start.
Dew R Oliver in his role as a rich Texas financier
Southern California Edison opened its Wind Energy Center eight miles northwest of Palm Springs in 1980 near its Devers substation, installing two wind turbine generators for testing, then in 1980 The first commercial wind farm was established by San Gorgonio Farms on a land parcel adjacent to the Devers substation, consisting of eight 25-kiloWatt downwind turbines.
Today there are 667 wind turbines with a total rated capacity of 656 MW. It’s a sight to see, and I made a music video there and at the Salton Sea somewhere around 2015, which I’ll post below.
Maybe the yacht club will reopen, you never know
Earthquakes aside Southern California is a place I really like. I’d go back and live there if the place wasn’t being run into the ground by the crazy politicians who are destroying it.
Good Day
*Oliver was a slick salesman, offering himself up as a rich Texas financier. When it looked like his machine would work, he applied for a license to begin selling stock in an energy company. However, he sold the stock before the license was issued, which got him in trouble. Hauled into court in Riverside in 1930, Oliver was tried and convicted of fraud and selling securities without a license. He served six months in jail, and then left the area with no trace.Oliver died in August 1949 in Los Angeles, never realizing his dream. https://www.pressenterprise.com/2015/04/12/back-in-the-day-wind-machine-predated-iconic-desert-turbines/
It’s all here in the video kids