Who is behind the camera in this 33 year-old Landers Earthquake VHS?

Listen to a longer version of Sunday's radio story here: Unknown voice: "June 28th, 4:55 in the morning in 1992. Turned the radio on to hear a noise, it shook the trailer off the jacks. Everything in the house is upset down. The ground is still trembling as I'm speaking. Early in the morning... just as the moon is there and the sun isn't up yet... I guess this will cancel our trip to Big Bear." A still from the "Landers Earthquake VHS" looking out toward Hondo, according to the narrator. Robert Haydon: What you're hearing is the voice of a man shaken awake by a series of earthquakes 33 years ago, culminating in the magnitude 7.3 Landers earthquake which shook the hi-desert, injuring hundreds, killing three, and damaging or destroying homes and businesses all across the basin. The Landers quake is still discussed by longtime residents who experienced it, especially as we approach the anniversary each June. There are a lot of locals and historical organizations with photos and other ephemera from the earthquake, but video footage from the event while it was happening is hard to find... a common problem for something that occurred back in 1992. That's what makes the tape you're hearing so incredible, it's a visual document of the Landers earthquake playing out in real time. The tape was rescued from its fate in the Landers Landfill by a local Landroid, Colin Maccubbin and his partner Aimee used to volunteer at Belfield Hall and the Landers thrift store when he found the tape in a box of other Kodak-brand self-tapes. Colin: "Oh, that's probably five years ago, maybe six years ago. Yeah, probably 2019. I think there was a box of VHS tapes that were most likely on its way to the dump, not something you can really sell at the thrift store. So I was looking through them and saw this one that said 'Landers Earthquake' and I thought, well, that's interesting. Colin found the "Landers Earthquake" VHS in a box at the Landers thriftstore at Belfield Hall around 2019. "We popped it in and we're just kind of astounded by all this footage from that time period of this big event in our town. It was really cool... it was just all this footage from 30 years ago. Interviews with locals. I had been interested when we first moved to Landers about the earthquake and I'd looked into it a little bit but there's not a ton of material out there... reporting on it and stuff like that." Unknown voice from VHS: "That's up towards our store over in that direction by Hondo Trail, I think. By Hondo Trail and Old Woman Springs Road .But we got a cloud of fire smoke above town and the whole desert has a layer of dust between here and the monument from this thing shaking." Colin:"We had a big screen in our yard and a projector and so we projected it and played it for a bunch of people. And since then, you know, we've showed it a few more times with people. A friend of mine used it for an art project up at the Copper Mountain Mesa Community Center. But other than that, it's just kind of sat on the shelf. The videotape has lots of footage of faultlines and the damage caused by the magnitude 7.3 earthquake. What looks to be Old Woman Springs Road shortly after the earthquake. Unknown voice: "I got up this morning, run into the back house, jumped the refrigerator, got my camera and a pair of shoes and went out the front door before everything was done falling and had this camera working. So I'm going to have to charge my battery up again here real quick. I got a generator at the house." Colin: "Now that everyone has cameras all the time and is ready to start filming all the time... in '92, that's a pretty special thing that somebody was ready to go and to document that." Unknown voice: "We're looking at Terry's place now where this mobile home with a double slide-outs on it has slid and fell clear off its foundation, breaking everything all to hell. I come around looking at these places here and I realized that my place wasn't as bad hit as I thought it was." Colin: "It would be really exciting to see if anybody knows where this tape came from, who shot it... just to know. But then also, you know, it'd be kind of cool to see if it itself maybe dislodges some other stuck pieces of history. Are there other tapes out there? Not even just earthquake material, but just historic material in general?" Robert: There are a lot of clues to who the identity of the man behind the camera is. There are parts in the video where he turns the camera around and films his wife, Barbara. They own a store in Landers and they also seem to own a small Cessna airplane. The two-hour tape ends with a Cessna tour of the Landers area, surveying the damage later that week from the air. The video is a goldmine of local residents and businesses as the cameraman goes from home to home interviewing neighbors. The narrator's wife Barbara standing in front of the couple's home and Volvo. An address reading "56675" can be seen in the upper right corner. A few shadows are the only glimpes we catch of the cameraman. Selfies weren't a common practice in 1992. There are plenty of interviews with neighbors and footage of homes, businesses, and roads around Landers and Flamingo Heights. The cameraman surveyed footage immediately following the earthquake and for a few days afterward with footage up to July 3rd. We've digitized the tape, but we're not releasing the full version until we can make an attempt to ID the original owner. There are plans for full screening and public release of the two-hour long tape in partnership with the Morongo Basin Historical Museum. We'll have those details as we get closer to the anniversary on June 28th. Here are the first 10 minutes from the "Landers Earthquake VHS": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnnLY07OvY In the meantime, we will continue to update this story right here on our website with captures and screengrabs and information that we are gathering on the VHS. Follow Z107.7 on Facebook and Instagram for updates, and email me if you recognize any of the folks on the tape: robert@z1077fm.com Neighbors on dirtbikes stand on a fault after the Landers Earthquake.