On June 29th the Burlingame Neighborhood Network (BNN) sponsored a webinar about the omnipresent threat of an earthquake here in B'game. Tom Brocher, former Director of the Earthquake Science Center at USGS was the presenter and made many key points that serve as a reminder to Be Prepared. You can find the whole pitch on the Burlingamenetwork.org website titled "It Can Happen Here". I'll just give a couple of teasers:
Historically, we had the '06 quake of 7.8 that lasted 45 seconds, then Loma Prieta in '89 at 6.9 (which was only 10% of the '06--remember it's a logarithmic scale) and '14 at 6.0 centered in Napa. Over the next 30 years we have a 22% chance of a big one on the San Andreas fault.
When, not if, we have a big one it could take at least 3 days for any sort of real help to arrive given roadbeds may subside differentially, landslides will happen on steeper slopes and over the following 3 to 4 days we could see many additional pipes breaking (i.e. gas, water and sewer) as movement settles.
There were only about 40 people on the webcast, so please go watch the video.
I missed today's 5.1 at 11:42 am and the 3.1 aftershock by about a half hour (did not feel it in the car). It's the reminder we all need--water, food, batteries, etc etc.
Posted by: Joe | October 25, 2022 at 04:54 PM
Is it "Fortunate or "Unfortunate" that a little earthquake comes to remind us how unprepared "Our Fair City" is?
In particular, "long/short term survival."
Posted by: [email protected] | October 26, 2022 at 02:18 PM
Hearing multiple news reports of the 6.4 near Ferndale/Eureka that hit at about 2:40 am and caused a lot of damage brings yet another reminder. It's a rural area with not much emergency infrastructure. 60 911 calls in the first 90 minutes overwhelmed the services. Long lines for gas and bottled water. And an expectation of 48 hours without power.
You know what to do from here. Check the quake kit. Refresh the water and batteries. Are the meds up to date in the kit?
Posted by: Joe | December 20, 2022 at 05:26 PM