Do I Really Need to Worry?

Not a Matter of If...But When.

Will Our Lives Change Forever?

Unfortunately, the most common responses to earthquake warnings are - Well, if it happens, it happens - I'm not gonna worry about it - we'll make do - we've lived through them before - here in the U.S. we're so much better prepared for them than other countries - the National Guard, state emergency services and the US govt. will see that we're alright.

A major earthquake in California, in spite of all our knowledge, preparedness, and retrofitting is not going to be business as usual. Our lives will be changed and while we would just like to put it out of our thoughts and hope it never happens, the warnings are all around us.

The Mighty San Andreas Fault is nearly 1000 miles long with its one end near the Salton Sea. It has been over 300 yrs. since this part of the fault has ruptured, and since it has a history of rupturing every 150 years it is long overdo - as one seismologist has been quoted as saying, it's like the San Andreas Fault "is 18 mos. pregnant".  So when she does go, expect it to be catastrophic !

To get an idea of the power of such an earthquake, figure that each whole number on the richter scale amounts to 10 (x) times the movement in ground motion as the previous whole number, while the energy released (or magnitude) would be nearly 32x times the amount of energy as the previous whole number. So an example 5.3 magnitude earthquake will be 10x the shaking ability of a 4.3, but will release 32x the amount of energy. A magnitude 8.0 is like setting off 6 million tons of TNT - and it is (10's of 100's) of times (10x10x10x10x10....!) that of a smaller earthquake and (tens of) thousands of times (32x32x32x32...!) more energy!

With each of the larger earthquakes we have been seeing lately, especially around the Pacific Rim, where most earthquakes occur, there is a potential to activate other fault lines. So 1 major earthquake in California is highly likely to disrupt and trigger even more major earthquakes. One major earthquake and its many aftershocks will most likely hair trigger other faults in California. So we may have more than 1 major earthquake, not to mention the numerous aftershocks. While we've witnessed some pretty destructive quakes in California, the most catastrophic ones are certainly yet to come.

Being more prepared... means less worry!