Top Seismologist: Southern California Due For Major QuakeYay! Wait. I mean: Scary!
August 10, 2007 - A top seismologist is warning that another major earthquake is in our future, a big one that could devastate Southern California, from the desert to the sea.
Lucy Jones, of the U.S. Geological Survey says it's not a question of where but when a big quake will strike the Coachella Valley, sandwiched between the San Andreas and San Jacinto faults.
Jones says that region is long overdue, and the seismic clock is ticking.
Jones says a magnitude 7.8 quake or more could collapse major freeways, knock down buildings in Downtown L.A., kill thousands of people and cause hundreds of billions of dollars in damage.
Officials in the Coachella Valley say they're taking her warning very seriously.
The only difference between this article and one that was written 20 years ago is that the date slug would read 1987. The words "that region is long overdue, and the seismic clock is ticking" are as true today as they were then (and probably earlier - I'm putting this into a framework of a me at 9 or 10, when I became aware of California's earthquake issue). But how true is that? I'm not really sure; in twenty years, the words have remained the same, the predictions have remained vague, and damage has been adjusted for inflation.
Is this progress? Or just fear?
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1 comment:
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we often hear that we, too, are way overdue for "the big one," complete with massive tidal wave. Of course, it doesn't help matters that we really were hit with a massive tidal wave back in the 60s :)
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