Let me try this on you, Ann - can I suggest a mental exercise that has helped me to relax and enjoy life, and not worry so much about impending disasters? Instead of worrying about the disaster that may happen at any minute, ask yourself, if a disaster happened in [2 weeks], what would you want to do be better prepared? Put that hypothetical disaster on your mental calendar, 12pm 2 weeks from today, like a dentist appointment, or a kid's play date, and do your best to get ready. I do this all the time, because my personal state of readiness fluctuates - is my car gassed up, is my cell phone charged, where did I put my crowbar anyway? You can make it your task to improve your readiness by removing potential broken glass from your living area, adding food and water to your stores, setting aside a pair of shoes for underneath your bed (where you may want them in the middle of the night). Emergency preparedness folks have tried to embed this kind of preparedness in a monthly calendar of tasks - food and water in month one, out of state contact in month two, etc - and that's good too. To me the biggest benefit is in breaking the work down into simple tasks, getting them done, and removing big worries from my mind along the way. If I have food and water put away I worry less. Same with first aid supplies, clothing, shelter, all the way down to cribbing and extrication gear. It doesn't matter whether a rat or my dog or my Aunt Rosie could predict earthquakes, if it happens it happens, I'm as prepared as I can be, modulo what I still need to do in the next couple weeks. It can help to remove performance anxiety - the same sense I used to get going up on stage as a kid, and doing a part in a play. If I took the time to learn my lines, it wasn't so bad. And there are probably still some parts I could play from memory now.

Anyway, food for thought - we don't need to know when the big one will happen, I think just after it does happen to us, we'll want to be able to say, yes, we were as prepared as possible, and get on with surviving and helping others. And hey, if I'm crushed in the Seattle Fault quake, which I probably will be, whoever digs into my house is going to find a whole lot of really, really neat stuff to live off of!