Not again! That was pretty much my reaction the morning after January 16, 1994. You’d think I’d be used to this by now – the weird cosmic pattern of being just a hair too early to be caught in calamity, or just a step too late to stop it. But the Northridge earthquake had a way of shaking that realization loose, rattling it around in my head like one of those cheap arcade claw machines I used to obsess over.

My parents and I had spent the previous afternoon at Malibu Grand Prix in Northridge. It was for one of my cousin’s birthday parties and, honestly, none of us were thrilled to be going out to the Valley. Malibu Grand Prix wasn’t exactly the glittering jewel of Los Angeles entertainment, especially compared to the roller coasters and theme parks closer to the city. But that was where the party was, so we packed up and made the trek from our San Clemente home.

Looking back, the Valley was an alien landscape to me. Growing up near the beach, I was used to salty air, palm trees, and ocean breeze. Northridge felt more like concrete and cracked asphalt than anything else. But the arcade at Malibu Grand Prix? That was my real draw. It was an old-school haven. Rows of blinking machines, the constant jangle of coins dropping, the whirr of pinball bumpers, and the occasional obnoxious melody of bleeps and bloops that haunted your dreams.

The birthday party itself was a chaotic blur of kids running around, the scent of stale popcorn mixing with the faint grease smell of pizza, and the relentless roar of go-karts circling on their track outside. I was fascinated by the machines – the way the colors and lights flashed hypnotically, the way the high scores taunted me from their electronic pedestals. For a moment, it was a perfect, distraction-filled afternoon.

We didn’t know, of course, that just hours later, the ground beneath us would rumble and tear with the fury of a giant beast.

When the quake struck, it was the stuff of nightmares, especially for those who had experienced the earlier Loma Prieta event back in ’89. This time, it was Northridge itself, the very neighborhood where Malibu Grand Prix sat, that bore the brunt. A magnitude 6.7 earthquake that reshaped lives, landscapes, and the physical fabric of the city in just seconds.

We were asleep, miles away, but even in San Clemente, the tremors sent ripples through our walls and rattled loose the security of the night. I remember waking up with a jolt, feeling the bed shift beneath me as if we were on a ship caught in rough seas. My mom’s voice was calm but urgent, telling me to stay in bed, to wait it out, but the tension in her tone betrayed the chaos outside.

When morning came, the news was a barrage of grim images and statistics. Malibu Grand Prix, once a playground of light and noise, was a shattered wreck. The building had collapsed in places, the go-kart track twisted and cracked. Streets were buckled like wrinkled sheets, traffic lights dangled precariously, and entire neighborhoods looked as if a giant had played a destructive game of Jenga.

The earthquake was one of the costliest natural disasters in American history, with damage estimates topping $50 billion. Roads and highways cracked and closed, complicating emergency response efforts and daily commutes alike. Yet, compared to some disasters I’d witnessed from afar, the human toll was limited – many injuries, but relatively fewer fatalities. It was a grim blessing.

Our own damage was minor, thankfully, but seeing the destruction across town on the news made the danger feel real and immediate. Malibu Grand Prix was gone, the arcade’s blinking machines silenced forever, at least in that location. I couldn’t help but feel a pang of loss for those familiar, comforting lights that no longer danced in the dark.

The repairs began quickly, spurred by a community’s determination to rebuild and move forward. Streets were patched, power restored, and businesses reopened. But beneath the surface, the earthquake left scars that lasted long after the rubble was cleared.

For a kid like me, always tiptoeing around the edges of disaster, Northridge was another notch in the growing list of times the world around me had nearly collapsed. It reinforced the uneasy understanding that safety was often an illusion and that beneath everyday life lurked chaos just waiting to spill out.

I often wonder if the city itself ever felt that tremor, the collective heartbeat of millions momentarily thrown off rhythm, and if the people who lived there carried those tremors inside them, long after the earth settled.

And while I never did get to race a go-kart that day, the memory of those lost arcade lights and shattered walls serves as a reminder of how quickly the ground can shift beneath your feet and how, sometimes, all you can do is hold on and hope you’re still standing when the dust settles.