I have a slightly different take on it. At least on the surface, you're right, it's about a long-distance relationship with a person who lives in CA. But I think CA is just a metaphor for somewhere foreign to the singer. He's using the setting and the idea of an earthquake to say the subject is a world away and imagining they're in a situation they aren't prepared for -- some disastrous trouble -- and the singer feels helpless for his inability to save them. He sees things that remind him of where she is, imagines the surroundings (shaking freeways I can't name), even tries to contact her, but to no avail and is left wondering. Is she just unavailable? Has she fallen victim to the vicious new world she's in? Or is she just waiting for him to join her?
I have a slightly different take on it. At least on the surface, you're right, it's about a long-distance relationship with a person who lives in CA. But I think CA is just a metaphor for somewhere foreign to the singer. He's using the setting and the idea of an earthquake to say the subject is a world away and imagining they're in a situation they aren't prepared for -- some disastrous trouble -- and the singer feels helpless for his inability to save them. He sees things that remind him of where she is, imagines the surroundings (shaking freeways I can't name), even tries to contact her, but to no avail and is left wondering. Is she just unavailable? Has she fallen victim to the vicious new world she's in? Or is she just waiting for him to join her?