EARTHQUAKE
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LOS ANGELES—Here in the glamour capital of the world, people are used to high-profile, earth-shattering events. But according to top insiders, publicists and seismologists, the long-awaited Los Angeles earthquake, due to arrive soon after decades of delays, is going to be the biggest thing to hit town in a long, long time.
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A billboard on Ventura Boulevard hypes the upcoming natural disaster.
"The pressure is on, and when this thing hits the streets, it's gonna turn this town upside down," Daily Variety's Marvin Demofsky said. "People have been waiting for it for years, and when those tectonic plates finally get ready to move on this, it's going to generate a lot of buzz. Believe the hype: This one is going to blow you away."
"Get ready to rumble, L.A.!" said popular gossip columnist Rita Jaynes of The Hollywood Reporter. "This thing is gonna tear the roof off box offices all across town!"
Though the groundswell of anticipation for the earthquake has been building for ages, the recent discovery of a series of highly unstable "blind thrust" faults directly beneath downtown L.A. has caused the hype to reach a fever pitch. So-called "slip-strike" faults, such as the famed San Andreas Fault, move horizontally, with the land masses sliding past each other. But thrust faults, like the newly discovered Hollywood Fault and Elysian Park Fault--on which Dodger Stadium stands--are much more destructive because they move diagonally and even vertically, "thrusting" masses of earth up and down and folding enormous sections underneath the surface itself.
"This quake should pull in big, big numbers on the Richter Scale. Not only is the potential for long-term impact large, but the opening weekend is almost certainly going to be a record-setter for casualties. I mean, this is going to open huge," said Dr. John Shaw, a Harvard structural geologist who last May helped discover the Puente Hills Fault, the largest of these hidden thrust faults, beneath L.A.'s most populated areas. "This is the sort of groundbreaking event that can really shatter expectations and shake up the industry."
The earthquake, which publicists are hyping as "a major motion event," is expected not only to strike it big with the coveted 18-to-34 demographic, but also prove just as powerful with all other age groups, as well.
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Paramount Pictures executives screen preview footage of the upcoming L.A. earthquake.
"This one is going to reach everyone: kids, young professionals, the over-50 crowd," publicist Shayna Glickman said. "We're talking record-breaking numbers of whites, blacks, Hispanics; you name 'em, they're going to be in on this quake."