California's other drought: a major earthquake is overdue
strangesounds.org
strangesounds.org
For facts, the USGS posts the best scientific evaluation of fault frequency. Here's the one for the Bay Area [1]. Summary is that in the next 30 years, there is a 98% chance of >= 6.0 (meh), 72% chance of >= 6.7 (ouch), 51% chance of >= 7.1 (Loma Prieta class), and 20% chance of >= 7.5 (Great SF Earthquake class). The fact sheet goes into detail on the likelihood of earthquakes on each fault.
"CIRES transmits earthquake early warning alerts through a network of VHF stations similar to the NOAA Weather Radio service in the United States, including use of Specific Area Message Encoding, but with faster lead times in order to issue more timely warnings within two seconds or less. CIRES offers alert systems for buildings and personal use, which also come pre-installed with the official warning sound used for earthquake alerts in Mexico. On its network of transmitters, CIRES issues required weekly tests every three hours to ensure receivers are connected to its network, as well as earthquake warnings when necessary. More than 90,000 users in Mexico City, including almost all public schools, have receivers. The Mexico City Metro additionally receives SASMEX alerts, although not for public dissemination but instead to stop trains or delay departures as necessary."
Would any expert reading this like to comment?
For large earthquakes, absolutely. But if you get a situation like the Canterbury earthquakes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Canterbury_earthquake - 17,000+ over the span of several years) the warning system becomes useless unless it can rapidly detect magnitude and mercalli intensity.
My family lived through the Canterbury earthquakes. If you live somewhere with this hazard PLEASE prepare accordingly.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-earthquake-early...
Health-wise, let's say every injury has cost $30k on average (IMO a very generous estimate). Looks like there have been about ten thousand injuries or so over the last thirty years. So that's $300M.
Let's say for the sake of argument that an early warning system reduces losses by 50%. So that gives us $150M in value over thirty years. Or about $7.5M per year in value. (Less, really, because value saved in the future has to be discounted.)
That doesn't really go very far even toward maintaining an existing system, to say nothing of developing a new one. (Assuming the last thirty years is representative, that my napkin math is good, etc.)
Spoiler: it varies wildly.
Writeup: https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/blog/id/93/how-much-are-we...
Citing: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=424523
Here are some illustrative examples:
* Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC's) regulation on childproof lighters = $100k
* Federal Aviation Administration rules on airplane cabin fire protection = $300K
* National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration rules on passive restraints and seat belts = $500K
* CPSC's rules on children's sleepwear flammability = $2.2MM
* EPA's rules on fugitive benzene emissions = $3.7MM
If you're worried about getting claim-jumped by an HFT firm subscribed to the public-warning system, a few millisecond delay might allow for trade execution?
That's better than nothing.
> It's probably not enough time to run out of a building.
It could be, if the building is less than 3-4 stories tall.
If you can't escape the building, the usual advice is to find a doorway.
Secondly, if you're in the midst of huge shelves with no escape (like a home depot) get under the first shelf. the shelving won't collapse downwards, but if a neighboring shelf falls sideways you'll be protected.
Harder to do in a real emergency, but good ideas, and thinking them through can be enough to execute them when needed.
Anyway - I highly encourage taking a local CERT class if you're in the US, or finding the equivalent wherever you live.
The reason to stay indoors is if you're in a city or next to buildings where glass and shrapnel could fall on you. If you have open space outside, then that is a much better place to be.
Generally, standing in an interior doorway is a far safer move.
You don't need to be in field in Kansas to be safe outside. If you're in the suburbs you have lawns, parking lots, or streets and there aren't windows above you. Obviously if you're in downtown LA or SF don't go outside. But there's a lot of people that don't live in, or aren't going to be in, an area with multi-story buildings completely surrounding them. You can easily get far enough away from a couple story building (parking lot) and be safe. That is much safer than inside said building.
Here's the rule of thumb "If something can fall on you outside, go to a door frame or braced structure." But I'll reiterate, it depends on your initial location.
The most useful place to be in a major earthquake is anywhere where things are not going to swing into or fall onto you. Such as underneath a desk (assuming it's not a cheap construction that will buckle under any significant weight).
Unreinforced masonry structures, tilt-up concrete buildings, and the like are far more dangerous. California has a lot of legacy tilt-up concrete structures in industrial and commercial zones.
Residences are probably more vulnerable to the resultant gas leak fires than the quake itself.
Also heard stories in the SF financial district of large glass windows popping out and falling into the street below.
Best time to sort out what to do is before the earthquake.
It's masonry buildings that are the most dangerous.
Either way, you should not be trying to exit a building during an earthquake because the greatest risk is debris falling on you, not the building collapsing on you.
In fact, framed houses are so safe that the current advice is that if you are in bed when an earthquake occurs, you should stay in bed. You are more likely to get hurt trying to get out of bed and find cover.
I hope it won't rain during an earthquake or landslides may happen.
* Elevators stop at closest floor and doors open, preventing people from being stuck between floors.
* Critical garage doors & gates at fire stations / hospitals will open, allowing emergency vehicles to quickly exit.
* Other critical doors & gates will close to prevent people from entering tunnels or other areas that could be blocked off.
* Trains will slow or stop to prevent derailments.
* Oil/Gas pipeline pressures will be reduced and valves will close to lessen impact if line is compromised.
* Hospitals alert to prevent mishaps in surgery or other dangerous areas (like MRIs).
* Airports alert to stop takeoffs/landings in case there are buckles in the runway.
In short, there are a ton of things that you can do to prevent really bad outcomes (many of which are prefaced on doing something before the power cuts out) that are much more difficult and expensive after the shaking has started.
Yes actually (or go into a doorway or similar). I don't understand the derision extremely simple and basic response strategies (like the well designed and effective "duck and cover" for nuclear strikes) get when they can be absolutely enormous lifesavers. A huge amount of the human injury potential from a lot of major classes of disaster is from simple stuff like flying/falling glass and falling dense materials, all of which can do terrible things to an unprotected human body but are also absolutely trivial to deflect with another inert object. Shattered non-safety glass will cause tremendous damage to soft tissues, and someone can certainly be badly injured or killed by even a small weight like a brick or other dense objects that fall from just ceiling or high shelf height.
But none of those is going to go through heavy steel or wood. Typical work desks and tables (and of course institutional use furniture in general) are quite sturdy. Door frames tend to exhibit significant structural reinforcement as well and be away from many short range dangers. Putting an inch or two (4-6 cm) equivalent of hardwood, dense composite wood, or metal between a person and debris can be the work of seconds, and the difference between a brick landing on the table vs on someone's skull is not nothing, as is getting into a position protecting the face and vulnerable extremities and organs as much as feasible and being braced.
It's true that better architectural and infrastructure design matters tremendously and is worth continuing to work on, that if a heavy building pancakes then anyone inside is in trouble/toast, etc. But on a population survival/mass casualty reduction basis a little executed well can make a bigger difference then a lot of people give credit. The difference between death/grievous injury in many mass disasters can come down to relatively small differences in where someone is and what actions they take right before, and how practiced they are in taking the best actions promptly. Don't underestimate it.
I can go all day....
It would've been useful in the 2016 Kaikoura quake though - watching the models* of how that fault unzipped up the east coast of the South Island should've given Marlborough and Wellington some warning.
* Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1HWet9j070
All 'early warning' systems rely on having sensors close to the epicenter that detect the waves before they propagate out to populations further away, but by that time the earthquake is already happening.
Even with the early warning, sometimes the earthquake will still be on the weaker end of the spectrum, so you brace yourself but not necessarily panic.
The 2011 earthquake started off moderately, so no one in my office ducked for cover until it really started to shake, which was already about half a minute in.
Earthquake P-waves travel at 5km/s. To get 60 seconds of warning, you must be 300km (186 miles) downstream of the detector.
Mexico has a very unique situation [1]: the filled lake basins that Mexico City sits on have the same resonance frequency as buildings of a certain height. Earthquakes generate that frequency. So a serious earthquake 300km away can get the lake basin rocking, and that will knock down buildings of a certain height.
A detector is nowhere near as useful in California. Consider the Loma Prieta Earthquake. It occurred 90km from the damaged sections of San Francisco. Assuming there is a detector within 10km of Loma Prieta, that is only 16 seconds of warning. Give a few seconds for the alert to get out, and it's barely 10 seconds. That's not enough time to do anything other than hide under a desk -- which you can already do after the earthquake starts. Such a system would be excellent for bringing trains to a halt, but that's pretty much it.
[1] See preface of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Mexico_City_earthquake
* Trains may stop, preventing a literal train wreck.
* People doing delicate tasks (e.g., a surgeon, someone operating heavy machinery, even someone cooking) may lock to a safer position.
* Elevators may stop and open the doors safely, so no one will be stuck inside them.
* Air traffic control may hold take offs and maybe landings.
* All traffic lights going red may slightly reduce car incidents. Seems minor, I admit.
Also, people with little experience (me!) do NOT understand that an earthquake is happening until after the fact. Some blast alert even during the earthquake is very helpful for tourists and even immigrants.
Here's another example of what you can do with ten seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gB6-nU2nJqM
In real life, the warning such as this would catch people by surprise. That's not to say they wouldn't be useful, but I highly doubt they would be that useful as they were on that video.
Even if I'm in my own home, I imagine it would take me at least a fifth of that time to look around and come up with a plan of what is achievable in such a short time span.
10 seconds would make a huge difference to some people.
I said that it super-helps Mexico, but that because of the specific situations in both regions, we should not anticipate getting anything like their results.
You could also cut off gas and water lines, so it would probably prevent a lot of damage due fire or flooding.
(normally on that day of the week I would have been on the lower part of the freeway that collapsed, went into work a day early that week because of the possible World Series traffic)
In general, some big water jugs that you periodically empty and refill are probably the better bet.
But don't you have to replace the water every 6 months? That's gonna be a huge chore, to do for the next 50 years. Is there an easier way?
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/03/15/world/science-h...
With the exception of '93-'98, I've experienced every event in the Bay Area since 1971.
Many local water systems are reinforced against earthquake damage. It's really the loss of electricity and gas leaks that are the problem.
That said, you should always have drinking and non-drinking water on hand that will last a few days. If you're smart, own some coolers and keep ice packs on hand to preserve your food. There are more cases than just natural disasters, when that could come in handy.
Even Loma Prieta only caused loss of power and/or gas in a few select areas, mostly the areas that got wrecked, where there were bigger problems to worry about. The epicenter was West of Gilroy, but there was no significant damage South of Oakland and SF. That's 90 miles away from the epicenter.
There are only a few really dangerous faults running through the area. If you're near one, you should seriously prepare and have safety plans. The East Bay from Hayward to El Cerrito or so, for instance, is really dangerous. The Greater San Jose is pretty tame.
That's my take, at least.
Having lived through Northridge in '94, I really hope he succeeds before it happens.
Martian colonies and mind uploading are unlikely to be ready by the time the Big One comes.
The big Silicon Valley companies are all huge multinationals at this point, more powerful (and safer) than many nation-states. I'm not even sure a worldwide nuclear war would take Google offline, although it would likely kill 90%+ of its customer base.
All the major power generation systems in the US and Europe that Google needs to operate, would likely be taken down. They're well known and those would all be intentionally targeted. Google as a shell of its former self might stay up briefly, that wouldn't last long outside of some stray regions. Further, they'd have those stray regions severed by local authorities who would divert the critical power to more important uses (literally keeping people alive). Any resistance by Google at that redirect of their power use would be met by military equivalent force.
A new e-mail appears in my inbox explaining that zombies have invaded Georgia and are trying to eat the brains of the data-center technicians there. The zombies have severed the network connections to the data center. No network traffic is going in or out. Lastly, the e-mail points out that this is part of a DiRT exercise and no actual technicians have had their brains eaten, but the network connections really have been disabled.
Like maybe safer than Uruguay? Not the US.
all employees within them... have been killed
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16590441
(The actual wording on the e-mail is usually far more colorful, and usually involves a zombie apocalypse. Mountain View employees aren't just dead, they're undead.)
I think the assumption is that if the event actually did involve a danger to life & limb, response would be in the hands of Google Physical Security, local first responders, CalFire, FEMA, etc. Those organizations all do drill for rescuing people and treating injured, and will be in a much better position to coordinate responses than Google ops people.
pretty sure both the hayward and the san andreas faults are not capable of this sort of destruction.
sounds more like a dark nihilistic adolescent fantasy.
There are a number of other scenarios that could conceivably take out all Bay Area offices: nuclear strikes on SF + Moffett Field, wildfires in the Diablo Range that sever all communications, secession of California and following military blockade, large scale protests or civil unrest that do the same, etc. Might as well protect against all of them rather than special-casing earthquakes.
It's basically the unspoken reason for Amazon HQ2, isn't it?
What precision is their output?
72h before big quake they start buying put options for insurance companies and firms most affected.
Rooting for anyone who actually does manage to do it though.
Long story short: a data center might be a good place to be in a disaster.
I did have the unpleasant experience of replacing my water cache and finding that one of the barrels had been leaking into one of the dry goods boxes. That was a gooey icky mess. And it reminded me to be more vigilant about rotating supplies.
Still, when it hits, I expect a lot of chaos.
It's how it's done with avalanches: you start them before they get too big and dangerous.
Look up the research around hydraulic fracturing (specifically, waste water injection).
It appears that there isn't much consensus around whether or not this is beneficial.
Also, remember that emergency kits include perishable items. Keep an eye on those, and remember to rotate your supplies.
That way you don't end up with 100 pounds of 10-year-old beans, rice, and MREs. YMMV if you're planning for SHTF/TEOTWAKI rather than a big earthquake.
A month or two ago there was an earthquake epicentered a 5 minute walk from my house. It shook my house and wobbled my walls and I thought for sure it was finally the big one. I find out the next day that it was only around a 4.0. It's hard to imagine what the epicenter of a 7.0 (>30k times as powerful) would feel like.
More than one window shattered, and our well (I lived in a remote area) actually was stressed so that it collapsed. We were lucky we only lost power for a week. People further up in the mountains didn't have it for over a month.
During LP, my then-pregnant sister lived in Aptos less than one mile from the epicenter. They were getting meaningful aftershocks by the dozens through the evening.
The surface waves were amazing directional. I was at work when it hit, and we had those suspended, noise-absorbing foam panels in the ceiling... and you could see the rippling of the surface wave propagate along the ceiling.
Those bookshelves/cabinets, dressers and other tallish rectangular objects that were perpendicular to the wave fell over; those parallel to it tended to be fine.
Almost everywhere along El Camino from Menlo to the Sunnyvale border had power outages, with one exception: a half-block of El Camino just "north" of Grant. Yet that half-block just happened to have a gas station and a 24-hour restaurant (where Los Charros is now) that remained up and running throughout.
https://www.railway-technology.com/features/feature122751/
The most surprising part for me is although most of the network was closed due to infrastructure being damaged on the day of the earthquake, everything was repaired and fully operational the next day.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_Early_Warning_(Japa...
googling gives some results of scientific papers that would say this is the way its done.
I live in a new construction home with a post-tensioned slab foundation about 4 miles from the Hayward fault -- in a vertical line straight down.
How worried should I be?
Building codes for new construction do most of the obvious now, the walls are tied to the foundation, there are shear panels.
5 to 15 stories is the worst height range, but shorter buildings can be bad if they're very asymmetric, like one with a parking under a two story appt, with one shear wall and poles for gravity support.
otoh, in a big enough earthquake, anything will be damaged.
I've heard that there is shockingly little consistency with retrofit companies and the work they do, and that the inspections aren't really great for those things, but I know next to nothing about making sure one's home is properly fitted.
An easy thing to check is the hot water tank. If it's not well strapped to studs, then I can't imagine anything else has been done. If it has, then at least you know that has been done, it it doesn't really tell you anything else.
I know when I was selling my house in Wa, that was one of the things the inspector looked for, so it's highly probable that it's been done, as its quick and easy.
Inspections are the only way to know for sure, but it can be invasive to get into the walls enough to see.
The foundation is slightly raised on post and pier with no sheering panels or bolts in the posts that I can see, but the exterior walls look like they may be bolted to concrete the foundation perimeter.
Any tips on making sure a retrofit company is legit? My biggest concern is I'd heard that the inspections for getting a retrofit aren't super consistent or thorough, which is a huge concern.