Today’s Chronicle had an article about the imminent large magnitude earthquake on the Hayward Fault, based on a new study by Risk Management Solutions in Newark, which appeared in this month’s Catastrophe Risk Management magazine. A better article based on the same report appeared in the Mercury News, a Silicon Valley newspaper.
Both articles drew the parallel between the Bay Area’s imminent disaster and Hurricane Katrina. The comparison is apt, but unlike with Hurricane Katrina, there will be no warning of the Hayward Fault earthquake, not even a day, or an hour.
To quote from the Mercury News,
Many people who experienced the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 believe they survived the big one, but scientists disagree. “This earthquake is going to be much stronger shaking for the Bay Area than Loma Prieta was,” Brocher (USGS seismologist) said. ” ’89 was not the big one.”
As the scientists’ warnings get louder, is anybody listening? Some definitely are. More than $30 billion has been spent on strengthening infrastructure including hospitals, bridges, gas pipes and other important infrastructure.
But the public is well behind the curve.“Most people have no idea when the last earthquake on the Hayward fault was, even though that’s the greatest hazard in the Bay Area,” Brocher said.
One of the main goals of this journal is to let the people of Berkeley and the surrounding region know exactly where the fault line is, and what is likely to happen very very soon.
How soon? How about tomorrow, or next month, or next year? Yes, that soon!
Walking The Fault - A Journal 
Leave a comment