LAT: California Earthquake Could Be the Next Katrina

[question everything]

California Earthquake Could Be the Next Katrina

By Jia-Rui Chong and Hector Becerra
Times Staff Writers

September 8, 2005

U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones remembers attending an emergency training session in August 2001 with the Federal Emergency Management Agency that discussed the three most likely catastrophes to strike the United States.

First on the list was a terrorist attack in New York. Second was a super-strength hurricane hitting New Orleans. Third was a major earthquake on the San Andreas fault.

Now that the first two have come to pass, she and other earthquake experts are using the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as an opportunity to reassess how California would handle a major temblor.

(snip)

A catastrophic temblor at the right spot along the San Andreas could significantly reduce energy and water supplies — at least temporarily, she and others said. Researchers at the Southern California Earthquake Center said there is an 80% to 90% chance that a temblor of 7.0 or greater magnitude will strike Southern California before 2024.

(snip)

Last week, the Legislature sent to the governor's desk a bill that encourages local governments to develop retrofitting programs for "soft story" wood-frame apartment buildings. There are an estimated 70,000 such structures in the state, and experts worry that they could sustain major quake damage, because they often have tuck-under parking and lack solid walls at their bases.

(snip)

Still, Southern California's geography could help prevent a catastrophe on the scale of that in New Orleans. Because the Los Angeles region is so much larger than the Louisiana city, it is difficult to conceive of a disaster — "short of an A-bomb" — that would blanket the whole city, let alone the whole county, in ruin, said Lee Sapaden, a spokesman for Los Angeles County's Office of Emergency Management... Emergency crews would have better mobility than those in New Orleans, he added, because even if freeways were wrecked, aid would probably be able to get through the vast majority of areas on surface streets. "Here in Southern California, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange and Santa Barbara counties would help us out, just like we would help them," he said.

(snip)

Times staff writer Bettina Boxall contributed to this report.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-quake8sep08,1,7500979.story?coll=la-headlines-california

[slackmaster]

1. That's why I plan to hold out at my home for up to two weeks

Without any assistance from anyone.