This fault has been dormant for over 300 years, however, scientists say that " it has a long geographical history of doing exactly what happened in Chile" and it has a lot of built up stress. These scientists predict that there is an 80 percent chance this fault will break within the next 50 years and cause a "megaquake" that will greatly affect northern California, Oregon and Washington.
Many state politicians are assuring citizens that appropriate measures are being taken as quickly as possible to protect cities from the harm of such natural disasters, but how fast is fast enough? Another question that comes to mind is how much energy should be focused on preparedness instead of post-disaster rebuilding, care, etc? We all saw how long the effects from Katrina lasted, and we all know that damage will occur no matter what, so who's to say how many resources get used for prevention before or saved for the damage after?
5 comments:
I'm really glad you posted this, Sabrina, because although the probability of a strong quake is extremely high, I know that many people are unprepared, whether it's taking preventative action for before or after the quake. In the whirl of the present and short-term demands, many put off purchasing earthquake supplies or fortifying their homes. For those of you who have yet to prepare, I strongly suggest visiting Orchard Supply, where they have many of your most basic and necessary earthquake supplies.
Scary!! I know we live right on the fault line, and its basically just a matter of time before the next big earthquake. Hopefully we will be prepared, and luckily for us most buildings here are designed to withstand earthquakes (unlike almost all the buildings in Haiti).
The title of this post should end in an exclamation mark, rather than a question mark.
I just started taking a CERT training class which stands for Community Emergency Response Team. They train people how to respond in these types of disasters and they guarantee that a big earthquake is coming (level 7 or above). These classes are gaining interest in the Bay Area too. I reccommend enrolling in one!!!
It's too late to prepare after a disaster, which is why it is important to prepare now.
I took CERT classes too, but it's still pretty scary that we're prone to a pretty large earthquake. We had the earthquake in the 1980s, but I don't think that was anything compared to what the scientists predict the future "megaquake" will be. I know a lot of people that live on the mountain sides and that is probably a very high risk area when an earthquake hits. When I went to some of those houses, they were on an almost 50 degrees slant! I hope some strong structural planning went into those houses...
-Henry Zhang
I think that pre-earthquake measures are more important than post-earthquake measures. Making sure that buildings are earthquake safe and that most people know the procedure of what to do during an earthquake before the actual disaster occurs are much better than preparing to rebuild cities after they have been destroyed.
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