Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Earthquakes

With the tragedy in Asia the news networks (aka CNN,Fox,MSNBC) have talked lately about earthquake potential in the United States. Here in Los Angeles we had our last sizeable earthquake centered in Northridge in 1994. San Francisco had a large quake as we all remember during the world series in 1989. California is known for earthquakes and we have long expected the "big one" which is a quake with a magnitude of 8.0 or greater. We know this, in California we have (allegedly) among the strictest codes for buildings. There are major faults running through downtown Los Angeles capable (allegedly) of again at least an 8 on the richter scale.

However there are cities besides those on the west coast that may not be as prepared as we are here. Charleston, Nashville,Memphis,St. Louis,New York all have faults near them or around them capable of sizable earthquakes and I bet they are not as prepared for a sizable event as we are. There was a quake in the 1800's (Robert you might have the year handy as if I recall you are knowledglable on this info) that was so strong it altered the Mississippi River.

I'm not trying to scare people we have enough to deal with as it is but it something we all need to be aware of because as I said it's something though we need to be aware of.

4 comments:

Robert E Wilson said...

The quake you are referring to occurred in 1811 with aftershocks going into 1812. You can read about it here.

This is a major reason why I am against Bush's plan to rebuild New Orleans at taxpayer's expense. It sets a bad precedent. What if a huge earthquake devastates the west coast or the Mississippi valley next year? Is Bush going to fork over billions and billions (I sound like Carl Sagan here) more?

By the way, Erik. I posted a rather lengthy reply on the terror post. I swear I saw it there and now it's gone. You didn't delete it did you?

Erik said...

I don't delete posts ever.

Erik said...

Especially Robert if you were actually going to have a statement that had facts in them.

Robert E Wilson said...

I didn't really think you would. I guess it's lost in cyberspace. I'll refrain from writing it again and save it for another time.