a natural disaster that killed 63 people and caused massive damage -- it’s right, especially in light of recent earthquakes in Samoa and Indonesia, to question whether it really prepared us.
The 1989 quake was small in size compared to what seismologists are predicting next. Add that to the fact that 10 times more people live in the Bay Area than in ’89 and you have a recipe for devastation.
Mary Lou Zoback, a senior research scientist with the bay area office of the U.S. Geological Survey, says that there will be a 50-mile-wide, 300-mile-long area of destruction.
If what she predicts is correct we should hope that the Bay Bridge is finished a rather lengthy construction saga by the time this quake hits because, “We know the Bay Bridge would fail if it was at least as large as in 1989.”
Zoback says that BART’s transbay tube, which runs from the east bay to San Francisco, would fail, cracking and allowing water to rush in.
These incidents would make the collapse of one section of the bridge, as well as the fall of the Cypress Structure and the fire in the Marina District look like child's play.
While the state lags behind in retrofitting structures that would most certainly fall, the local speak doesn’t help either. Take for instance the term “The big one.” It's become almost colloquial in the Golden State.
For the last 20 years all we’ve heard is, “The big one is predicted to happen in the next 30 years.” It seems almost no scientist, indeed almost no one, has changed this tune.
An earthquake is due but when will it really strike? If one figures that the last “big one” in California was the Northridge Earthquake and that happened 15 years ago, aren’t we do for an earthquake in 15 years, or less, and not 30?
Perhaps it’s truly time to take preparation into our own hands.
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