My understanding is that the way buildings collapse in Hollywood is not how they collapse in reality. If the base of the structure begins to fail, it doesn't fall over as a tower, but crumbles into itself.
I am very skeptical of anybody, no matter how experienced, that gets on the news and says "that'll never happen," regardless of what the "that" is.
Has he considered a skilled terrorist cell lacing only the east side of Salesforce Tower with explosives?
Either way there's probably a bigger pile on the east side, but it's not like the top floor of a 1000' building will land 1000' laterally from the base. 100' would be a long way (tho there's be lots of flying debris for a good distance).
As soon as you might start to turn the building onto its side it falls apart like a sand castle. Were this not to happen the building would have to be engineered such that it could withstand being turned on its side like that without collapsing. But they don't design them as such.
It'd be like constantly worrying about protecting yourself from lightning.
Anyway, this is why we have a lot of earthquake preparedness, though the chance is 5% in the next 30 years.
It's not a "constant worry," so much as a plan. There's non-negligible chance of terrorist attack, so they architect in such a way to prevent it being catastrophic. There's a non-negligible chance of your office catching fire, so they put green exit signs at the door. That sort of thing.
Not even close. USGS estimates over the next 30 years are: 72% probability of a M6.7 or higher 51% probability of a M7.0 or higher 20% probability of a M7.5 or higher
All in all not since 1933 has CA lost more than 100 lives in an earthquake: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_earthquakes_in_Calif...
That tells me our building codes are pretty damn good.
I work at ucsb and the catilina islands recently had a 5.2 about 2 weeks ago and the building shook abit. But all in all unless we suffer an 8.0+ I'm not terribly worried (knock on wood). To put that another way, realistically for any moderate sized earthquake CA is generally well prepared in terms of architecture, unless the big one hits ... In which case just kiss your butt goodbye.
I do wish, even for the big one, that CA invested in an early warning system like Japan has ... Imagine a 5-50 seconds warning of an earthquake, that would save lives, not stricter building codes: https://youtu.be/OXXZouxPT7U
Here is a better, live example of the early warning: https://youtu.be/n-FMpNBfna8
It's also worth pointing out that there has arguably not been a large quake close to a major city center in California since 1906 (for some values of "large" and "close"). The 1994 Northridge quake, which did some $15B in damage, was probably the best recent preview we have. Loma Prieta certainly did serious damage, despite being (as I recall) some 75 miles from San Francisco.
The real test is when the Calaveras Fault that runs up the east side of the SF Bay breaks. The last time was 1868, when there wasn't much there; estimated magnitude was 6.3 to 6.7. A quake of that size on that fault now — and it's getting to be likely, in the next two or three decades — is going to make a hell of a mess. We'll find out then how well a lot of things hold up.
I don't think it would cumulatively add up to much, but would love to see the math.
A lightning rod (US, AUS) or lightning conductor (UK) is a metal rod mounted on a structure and intended to protect the structure from a lightning strike. If lightning hits the structure, it will preferentially strike the rod and be conducted to ground through a wire, instead of passing through the structure, where it could start a fire or cause electrocution. Lightning rods are also called finials, air terminals or strike termination devices.
In a lightning protection system, a lightning rod is a single component of the system. The lightning rod requires a connection to earth to perform its protective function. Lightning rods come in many different forms, including hollow, solid, pointed, rounded, flat strips or even bristle brush-like. The main attribute common to all lightning rods is that they are all made of conductive materials, such as copper and aluminum. Copper and its alloys are the most common materials used in lightning protection.[1]
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