 How close are we, do you think, to what everybody calls the big one for California? Well, for Northern California, I think we're 20 or 30 years away. The last major quake on the Loma Prieta area was 1865, and it took 41 years before the big one. But in Southern California, they are far more overdue. Their last big one was 1857, another 50 years further back in time, and that