04 September 2014

More earthquake pictures

I mentioned the little white house that was knocked off its foundation in a previous post, didn't get a picture that time. Today I did:

I thought it was a total teardown, but there was somebody working on it, talking to people explaining how he was going to bring it back to life. I hope you can do it, it looks like it'll need a miracle.

And while I'm already writing ............. L and I decided to walk through downtown Napa after lunch today. There are still roads blocked off - for safety reasons, the Post Office looks the same as before, except this time I saw that both doorways are in very tough shape and that plenty of the beautiful old windows are broken. Plenty of other buildings are also damaged. There is activity almost everywhere. Quite a few of the remaining stores are open again, whether they have windows or a board nailed across the window opening.
What I found really sad, though, (apart, obviously, from the damage to so many beautiful old buildings) is that the downtown, the pedestrian mall was a total ghost town. And not because of earthquake damage. All the stores, except for Kohl's and McCaulou's were boarded up with signs announcing that things were in the process of being re-done. There's supposed to be a big hotel and upscale stores. When I moved to Napa, years ago, downtown was thriving. There were small, independent, interesting stores, little restaurants. They are all gone. I keep hearing rumors about raised rents, people being forced out because these stores don't fit in with somebody's vision. Sad!

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