Earthquake
Ahle2
Posts: 1,179
What would you do if you somehow knew in advance a major earthquake would hit the US west coast tomorrow?
1. Tell everybody to leave and risk to be blamed/stoned for "causing" the quake.
2. Don't tell anyone and live with the fact that you could have warned and saved a lot of people.
How would you react if someone told you this in advance and it came to happen?
1. With a feeling that reality is more than you can see with your bare eyes.
2. It's just a one in a million coincidence and everything is as it always has been.
1. Tell everybody to leave and risk to be blamed/stoned for "causing" the quake.
2. Don't tell anyone and live with the fact that you could have warned and saved a lot of people.
How would you react if someone told you this in advance and it came to happen?
1. With a feeling that reality is more than you can see with your bare eyes.
2. It's just a one in a million coincidence and everything is as it always has been.
Comments
-Phil
Incredible, but obviously someone had good information.
I might tell my friends and family but who else would even listen?
I lived in Northern CA for 25 years, then moved to indiana. The first earthquake big enough for me to feel was in Indiana.
I was fishing the sacramento river when the big bay area quake happened, I saw these real long frequency waves coming in, so I knew something was up.
Grab the wife and head to Reno! ;-)
JimInCA...
I'll never forget standing on the second floor of Mission College in Santa Clara facing south in 1989. Back then there was much more open land. I could see Intel in the distance. I was looking out over a big lettuce field between me and I101 "Bloody Bayshore Freeway" as it was known back then.
The ground moved like waves on the ocean with probably 4 foot swells. The building jolted up, then rumbled for about a minute. I was too scared to try and warn anyone. It was very sickening to see the I80 double-decker pan-caked right after that on the news.
We had one on the east coast just recently. I didn't even feel it.
I live in a valley so its sort of like asking people what would you do if you knew it was going to flood. I bring backyard toys out of the flood zone. I'd put things like lawnmowers higher up than the ground. I would help the neighbors put their generator up and put in a specially made door to stop the water. I bought a guard dog sold at Home Depot and Lowes which is an alarm for water in your basement and I would have a wet/dry vac and sump pump ready along with towels. I put plastic lining and sandbags up against my back door.
I used my GPS to get to work and I was detoured three times. You couldn't find many flashlights in the stores after hurricane Irene.
Then it is cleanup afterwards and anything you failed to secure gets damaged and thrown out.
Then what would you do if the crazy news media told you to fill up your basement with water because the water department might shut off the water to prevent flooding? Then they told us there were tornadoes so we slept on the lower floor. They are full of things to scare us and there are just things you can't prevent so if you live in a high rise then what can you really do?
I recall in the risk mitigation planning for Y2K the big concern was less about Y2K (where we and everyone else had done significant testing to ensure we'd at least understand if not prevent any issues) and was more about the general population's reaction (herd mentality) to the percieved threat/event. Most people do not realize but your local supermarkets only have enough bread on the shelf for about 1.5 days, there is no warehouse of stuff out the back. The stores are restocked daily, from trucks, the trucks get it from distribution centres, again they don't have significant stock, just enough for distribution. The distribution centres are fed by the suppliers, again they supply what is requested based on the predicted demand. They acquire or manufacture based on the projected demand (Just In Time Manufacture). They in turn get the raw materials based on what they project to supply. Everyone in the supply chain is goaled on having minimal inventory, and are penalized for having too much inventory (most supply chains are made up of corporations, they are goaled on minimal inventory levels as the analysts see inventory as money that is not working. A lot of them now show the inventory as off their hands when it is in the loading dock, a magical line is often drawn in their facilities to help manage the inventory reporting. Some go to lengths to "sell" on paper the inventory to the shipping company so it's not on their books for the day it takes to get to the next person in the supply chain.). Most of the inventory is in transit in trucks and not in warehouses. So the big risk was less on the collapse of the computer systems and networks but more from herd mentality panic buying from the public just prior to Y2K, that depletes the stores of key items, leading to more panic buying causing issues to the supply chain trying to keep up with the unplanned/unpredicted demand. Depending how close that occurs to the event you could have a population in panic spreading to other sectors like fuel, banking etc. Fortunately none of this happened :-) The people who were likely to panic were prepared with their own Y2K bunker (box of tinned tuna, rice, LPG tank for cooking, water and flashlight batteries (it took us about a year to eat through ours! LOL!)).
Though normally any appocolyptic predictions are unlikely to be followed except by a small minority. But in any big city the minority can still cause some panic buying, freeway congestion, etc. If let's say the media (TV, Radio etc) reports on the panic before the event, it may trigger other folks to join in (herd mentality) leading to it's own event. Which may cause significant disruption and potentially injury & deaths.
So instead, make certain that you're safe.
Pick roads that can't 'pancake' on you when driving, keep a good food-supply, water, common medicines and bandages.
emergency lighting. Have 'rally points' that everyone in the family can reach. Keep 'bug out' bags in your home, and possibly a larger kit one or two places off your property somewhere.(reduces risk of all your supplies being destroyed)
Bug-out bag = camping equipment, food and other emergency tools that can be carried easily. (No more than 10Kg/20lbs, really)
Try to avoid too much 'gender specific' stuff in it.
Rally points needs to be within walking distance of your home, and preferably within walking distance of at least one of your caches.
Basements, heavily forrested areas, or places that will be flooded with 'sheep' during an emergency is not good choices.
'Far west corner of parking lot' is good. If the place has some potential for protection, even better.
If you have children, make certain they know where all are, and to stay put on the first point they can reach if it's safe. YOU(or partner) will make the rounds until the family is accounted for.
You don't want your cache to be at a rally point. During an emergency, lots of people turns into 'predator mode', Not only may they chase you away from 'their territory' but they may also investigate what you were doing there, and nick all your stuff! (and besides, as the point must be easily accessible, it's difficult to hide anything there, safely)
I was in the Loma Prieta quake, experienced the Mount St. Helens erruption, have been through quite a few typhoons and quakes in Taiwan since 1994 and visited Phuket just 90 days before the tsunami hit.
The drama of 'what if' is what sells movies. The reality of disasters are that the orphans suffer far more than the dead.
After a major disaster strikes, leave the area if you can. And don't expect any rescue for the 3 days or so - you are pretty much on your own.
Actually if you look at the TV news, after an earthquake in the U.S., it looks like the entire area was destroyed. However if you go to that location in person, you might have to drive around quite a bit before you saw ANY building which had visible damage!
And that is what they show on TV - Only the damaged buildings. They don't show all the buildings which were not damaged. Thus you get the false impression that everything was destroyed!
Many buildings on the west coast are designed to withstand earthquakes. And wood built structures will just bend back and forth and stay put if they are tied down to their foundations. High-rise buildings will bend back and forth as well. Some have "tuned mass dampers" to reduce sway...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttDpEQULxrI
Brick buildings are another matter. Bricks can fall and hit people running out of the building, thus it might be a good idea to stay in the building under a desk! Ceilings and light fixtures inside any building can fall down and hit you on the head, thus another good reason to get under a desk or a sturdy doorway.
As for warning other people in advance, that is pointless. People do not listen to warnings. For years I have warned people to back-up their computers. They don't do this until after their computer crashes...
What to do/not do during an earthquake...
http://www.fema.gov/hazard/earthquake/eq_during.shtm
Earthquake engineering for buildings...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_engineering
Funny thing you should post this. When the office buildings were swaying on the east coast, the one thing that people did that they weren't supposed to do was go outside and stand next to the buildings and people at an IVY League University did the same thing.