Some very big quakes shook Indonesia yet again, the mega-quakes of this last decade have been astonishing and the ‘aftershocks’ are still quite strong. Meanwhile, in North America, the quakes at the far northern end and far southern end of the San Andreas continue to worsen. The time for the totally quiet middle section of the San Andreas fault line is very close to jerking violently with the western half ready to shoot northwards by around 30 feet in one second. This event will be a tragic disaster for many people in particular, the many who live right smack dab on top of this dangerous fault line.
IRIS Seismic Monitor – Recent Earthquakes
5.9 mag at 10.2km deep OFF COAST OF OREGON
4.1 mag at 10.0km deep GULF OF CALIFORNIA
The sad fact is, both ends of the plate that is rapidly and I may add, quite mysteriously (geologists still don’t know why, exactly!) moving towards Alaska as fast as geologically possible has been having frequent and increasingly stronger and stronger earthquakes. Meanwhile, the middle part running past Los Angeles is totally quiet with nary a tremor.
This is BAD NEWS. Everything around is shaking with increased intensity while the deadlocked middle section refuses to budge. It will suddenly spring forwards with great violence and we don’t know when but the day is sooner rather than later.
Using Google Maps, I decided to take a hike through the San Bernardino neighborhoods that were foolishly built right smack dap on top of the San Andreas fault. Not near. Right on top. This geological folly was permitted by lazy and stupid government officials.
We can see from this first example how the San Andreas runs right down the center of the street! It has the gutter in the center where the sleeping dragon lies.
We see from this picture that the west side of the street will shoot forwards at tremendous speed when the earth resets itself further northwards. The houses are less than 40 feet away from the edge of the two continental plates.
This is, of course, insanely dangerous! Every one of these homes should have been bought out several decades ago and all building on the fault line forbidden. Instead, all of these houses had huge mortgages plopped down on them as housing shot up in value during the housing bubble.
None of these houses can be insured against earthquakes because there is a 100% chance they will be destroyed in any particular time in the future and I speak of less than 20 years sort of future.
Many roads follow exactly the line of this hazardous geological feature.
Note how it skirts the large homes with swimming pools. Here, the danger is also landslides.
I took a shot of one road that follows the San Andreas. Note how the North American continent side is higher than the tectonic plate moving north side.
This is the biggest structure sitting right next to the San Andreas: a casino.
Here is the front entrance which is less than 50 feet from the San Andreas. The chances of this building collapsing is quite high. Of course, it is also virtually brand new. And shows that NO ONE in the government gave ANY regard to the proximity of the fault line when giving a building permit to the irresponsible idiots who built this thing.
All along the fault earth moving equipment sought to conceal the fault line.
This is so sad.
If this tank collapses, the houses below will be washed away.
Thanks for the San Andreas Fault Map – Zoom In on the Fault! – GEOLOGY.COM and Google Maps, we had a delightful stroll down many doomed lanes tonight.
Not one of these buildings are older than 60 years, most are not older than 30 years. We knew about plate tectonic movements and the San Andreas during this entire time span. Every single building on this tour should never have been built and it is criminal to keep them there passively waiting for the inevitable deaths.
These will also burn and there will be no water to put it out. All of LA will be cut off from electricity and water coming from the east across the San Andreas. Nothing reasonable is being set in motion to deal with the possibility that we will have no water and very little electricity when the big quake inevitably will happen.
And our navy will be too busy patrolling Australia and Japan to protect them from China and the other half of the navy is stuck in the Persian Gulf, making fools of themselves. There will be no naval rescue in time.
This all would be funny if it didn’t mean lots of people will die. I am puzzled as to why there is no sense of urgency in California. Or DC. We think we can ignore this? At least fix San Bernardino so it no longer sits on the San Andreas! That isn’t all that hard to do compared to digging out the bodies later.
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“This geological folly was permitted by lazy and stupid government officials.”
I wonder if it was more cupidity than stupidity.
Modern cities rely on networks of electricity, water, sewage and roads. It is very expensive to repair these and they are now 30 years old. The direct number of deaths are going to be fewer than you would think.
@billibaldi
Yes, it’s hard to fix any damage beforehand.
It will be awful and then everything has to fixed.
In that order.
The houses sitting ON the San Andreas will be very, very badly damaged if not totally destroyed. There is not the slightest doubt about this.
The older homes are also not as ‘quake proof’ as houses built more recently under better building codes.
And this WILL happen. The only question is which day in particular.
Also, most deaths will be post-earthquake due to the immense population that will have no water and possibly no electricity. The government had to struggle very hard to deal with the thousands left homeless and with no services in San Francisco 100 years ago.
The government barely was able to help the people of New Orleans and they are one tenth the population in the LA region. So I surmise since our government has moved the National Guard out of the country, the people of LA will be essentially on their own when this happens.
«I wonder if it was more cupidity than stupidity. Modern cities rely on networks of electricity, water, sewage and roads. It is very expensive to repair these and they are now 30 years old.»
Well, it is stupid greed, and I read an article that suburbs in America are a Ponzi scheme, most so in California.
The reason is that because of lowe low property and other local taxes, local governments cannot budget for maintenance of existing utility infrastructures, from roads to sewers, unless they collect new infrastructure connection fees from developers. Therefore they have a strong incentive to push for more suburbs to pay for the maintenance of older infrastructure with part of the fees for newer infrastructure, and in California newly built houses pay property taxes based on current values, not 30 year old values.
Extensive suburbs for affluent conservative residents require the most maintenance cost, because affluent households consume a lot of water, discard a lot of sewerage (all those perfectly manicured gardens and pools), wear out roads faster (all those heavy SUVs hitting the road), plus much longer pipes and roads are needed because they are low density. While poor neightbourhoods cost a lot less for the inverse reasons.
And never mind that affluent conservative suburbers want everything fixed ASAP, because poorly maintained utilities drive down house prices.
It is affluent conservative suburbanites that hate being taxed to pay for the huge investment in services and maintenance for the services their mansions require, and who constantly vote for lower property taxes to benefit themselves and accept higher sales taxes and fees to shift the burden of service infrastructure upkeep on the poor, who use mich less of it.
«The direct number of deaths are going to be fewer than you would think.»
Only percentually. It is not just the collapse of services that will cause damage as EMS notes; it is that several of those services are dangerous when damaged.
If there are heating gas supplies to homes, cracking the gas pipes will cause explosions or fires; damaged electrical supplies and appliances may well produce sparks starting other fires; flooding by water and sewerage when those pipes crack will produce serious health problems, from risks of spreading diseases to spreading dangerous contaminants. Damaged road will prevent garbage collection, and also corpse disposal.
And if a disaster happens, what will happen to the thousands of nuclear weapons stored in military facilities (mostly ports) in that area?
“JT” I think that the point made by “billbaldi” is that local governments hope that the San Andreas fault springs soon and that area becomes unhabitable so they don’t have to spend money upgrading and repairing the local services there, keeping local taxes low.
Let’s just all agree that this is in fact a case of denial. Everytime we dodge a bullet, we think there’s really nothing to worry about. Combine that with the general attitude in this country that we should have the “liberty” to do as we please and you have a recipe for disaster.
This is true in almost every issue we have in this country. It’s all about mind over matter. It’s just too restrictive to imagine that there are large tracts of land that cannot be developed in the Supply Side economy.
Indian Point nuclear plant in Bucchanan NY is built on a fault. One can only wonder why a choice like that is made, but that’s who we are and that’s what our developers come up with.
We as a people have been living with a sense of impending doom, from the Cold War to Terrorism and Peak Oil. I don’t think we’ve developed a way to anticipate and practice risk aversion in the way we develop here in this country and the each man for himself way of life isn’t helping.
ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ
ELAINE: Water tends to run along fault lines so many nuke plants are plopped down there. Back in 1968, people could be excused for being stupid about this but today it is obvious to any geologist which is why most of these stupid things should be removed.
Some dark humor occured to me:
“We see from this picture that the west side of the street will shoot forwards at tremendous speed when the earth resets itself further northwards. ”
So if you don’t like your neighbors, just give it a couple of more years 😉
Anyway, one other important ‘risk’ is that much of California’s water is piped in. And earthquake will damage this infrastructure – and believe me, people will not be able to wait weeks or months for the repairs.
@JT, point taken.
This is about San Bernadino. When JHK talks about the Long Emergency, this is Ground Zero. This is where people who didn’t mind driving 2 hours to LA lived for cheaper housing.
A chunk of the water for this part of California gets pumped from the Colorado river and the Delta. I would suspect that if these supplies get compromised by an earthquake and choices have to be made, San Bernadino will be closed down.
A note for JT, so you don’t have to. A lot of the water for this area travels via the State Water Project and get pumped about the distance of Helsinki to Minsk. Worse, the Delta where the water comes from could be seriously affected by liquifaction following an earthquake and lose the system of levees that separate the fresh water from salt.
for background on the Delta
«This is true in almost every issue we have in this country. It’s all about mind over matter.»
That’s a very good point, that I have seen before but is good to repeat. Everything in Real America is about confidence.
It is the unbounded optimism of Real Americans as to risks: risk is something that happens to losers.
And if you are a loser it is because you don’t have faith! Mind over matter indeed.
As someone argued recently, most economic or political theories are rooted in (crude) theology, that is belief and metaphysics.
As Saint Ronald the Reagan said: “It’s morning again in America”, which was far more popular than Carter’s message of planning for lower energy use and other long term risks.
«Indian Point nuclear plant in Bucchanan NY is built on a fault.»
Somehow that got approved, and per EMS’ recent posts on cumulative radioactive poisons, long term risk eventually happens.
The USA is a country in which vendors generously paid propagandists to downplay or deny the well documented (even at the time) long term risks of lead in petrol, of microfibre asbestos in buildings, of particulates in tobacco, and found Congress more than willing to listen, for a fee, and USA voters slurped it all down very astutely.
Why not downplay or deny the risk of nuclear power stations in high density living areas?
«local governments hope that the San Andreas fault springs soon and that area becomes unhabitable so they don’t have to spend money upgrading and repairing the local services»
In another rich country I know local government policitians were salivating with greed after an earthquake had devasted their region, because this meant huge national government reconstruction funds coming in solving all their budget problems and making their families and political friends really rich with no-bid emergency supplies and rebuilding contracts.
Disaster capitalism happens, but it is not capitalists that can make huge profits on other people’s disasters.
Who says these government burocrats aren’t capitalists?
In America, capitalism is associated with financial success, not hard work. Politicians, bankers, aristocrats, etc. are the most successful capitalists on average, which is why capitalism does not work for small businessmen in the long run, and with the age of oil passing right before our eyes, capitalism will go with it.
With the end of the industrial age, looting will become the main route to wealth, as it always was in the past.
My old man’s winter place in Desert Hot Sprs used to be only a mile to the fault. We used to walk out there. You could tell it was a fault. Many of the natural palm oases,like 1000 palms preserve, were on the fault line due to the fault being an area where water can seep up out of the fractured rocks easier than elsewhere. One night the bed felt like we were on an Amtrak car in the sleeping berth (on bad tracks) !
«Disaster capitalism happens, but it is not capitalists that can make huge profits on other people’s disasters.»
Ooops, I really meanmt to write:
Disaster capitalism happens, but it is not [just] capitalists that can make huge profits on other people’s disasters.
Why people blame capitalism for every evil in this world? I don’t know, but I rather live in this Country than in any Socialist Country…. Why Socialist don’t leave for those Countries instead of trying to change the most advanced way of life that humanity has ever experienced??
Capitalist means “survival of the fittest” just we (“we” meaning life) have been for Billions of years. In the end, we will return to greed and capitalism. “Survival of the fittest.” It’s our route. Would you survive if I dropped you in a rain forest? In an area of the USA were there are grizzly bears? Hmmm.
I give GREAT credit for the world today. I live in America and I’m a biochemist. Life is good and I thoroughly enjoy it. …. It wasn’t always that way! Thousands of years ago, there were Kings and slaves. You might do something that could result in your death. So, I give humans great credit to where we are today, in 2014. Hey, I’m typing this on an iPad. Our government has access to my phone (and everyone’s) and has drones. Yeah, we’re headed in an INTERESTING direction.
Back to the earthquake. Yes, it’s an absolute shame there are houses on the San Andreas. But human activity, capitalism, just doesn’t care. Look at the bright side, WE KNOW ABOUT THE FAULT LINE AND THE SAN ANDREAS. Most don’t have a clue!!!! I’ve known for years (google “San Andreas history channel” to see an amazing History Channel video on YouTube). The biggest concern is water; I have a swimming pool and a water filter from REI. The Los Angeles aquaduct WILL fail!
Yes, Brent, as I point out (family lived in California and Arizona during the Wild West days and Gold Rush) water is everything. LA is utterly dependent on water that must cross the San Andreas.
Ok whoever made this site/blog it mostly right . So you know the picture when you said all those houses will be washed away if the tank collapses will be washed away.! 😦 Well I’ve been looking this up a lot and happen to come across this page . Turns out I live right by foothill and sterling . The street below newburry . I’m probably the only person that looked this up living in this area and commenting . Your right why would they build houses near this shit and sad to say I’ve lived here and in the area for a majority of my life since my parents moved here .If just if the big quake happened . Where would you recommend I go/want to be at in my front yard because I definitely don’t trust my roof at all! I’d rather be in my front yard hugging my Palm treess which are the 3 tall Palm on Elm ave .
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No doubt the earthquake will be strong and the effects will be a lot of destruction but as a Chilean, and someone who has seen 2 major earthquake in the last 10 years and in a country that has seen some of the biggest earthquakes in recorded history I can tell you that the death toll will not be what you imagine and not having water and electricity will NOT kill the population. There will be sufficient water for survival purposes, and electricity is only a necesity for the very ill, who will probably be covered by generators in proper places (Emergency services are generally covered by electricity). The US has a level of organisation both military, business and government wise that we do NOT have in Chile and even so major earthquakes are fairly well controlled here. Your biggest risk is one that is much more difficult to control: Seabased earthquakes and tsunamis. Whereever the coast is flat the impact will be horrendous as the Japan tsunami and the pacific tsunami showed us and even advance warning is not worth much if there are no adequate and robust high points to evacuate to. Also you need to realise that while the earthquake could happen tomorrow it still could also take 100 or 200 years. It’s the sort of risk that is virtually impossible to quantify and the US is if anything ruled by financial quantification. If you can’t quantify the effect on the bottomline then it will get ignored.
More importantly the biggest danger is how your society will react. Nepalis were very solidaric during the last earthquake and there was no looting, goods were shared around, people bought only what they needed and noone panicked. In Japan supermarkets rationed sales and allowed noone to buy more than a certain amount. Unfortunately the sort of hyperbole that you apply here, and that movies show about disasters is likely to create an atmosphere of panic that will promote looting and hoarding which are a far bigger cause of danger than the natural event itself.
As a nation the biggest thing you need to do is to educate people on how to react in an emergency in a socially optimal way, meaning to share around, to help eachother and to maintain calm and order. In normal circumstances individualism can be fine: In an emergency if you want an efficient response and reduce harm then society needs to be profoundly collective and responsive to everyones needs.
Reblogged this on davidpr86 and commented:
San Andreas Fault
If you know your geology, cities and or homes around the fault wont get that badly damaged, the ones on it of course..probably will…, so anyone a few miles , like 2 – 4 miles, probably wont get affected as much. An earhquake those miles away would be most likely a 3.4 or 4.2… not a 4.6+. Unlike Los Angeles of course, will be badly damaged.
My parents were born in California and lived there a long, long time and I had to fix their home after one ‘small’ earthquake that did STRUCTURAL DAMAGE. And this happens a lot in California.
It doesn’t take much to do damage. Yes, buildings may appear to be OK when seen on the news meanwhile, the damage is very much there and has to be fixed, far from the epicenters of earthquakes.
I am working for a publisher who would be interested in using one of the images on your blog in a geography textbook. Would you be able to contact me regarding this use? Many thanks.
Thanks for your email, did you receive my reply?
I live very near the fault in East Highland and am not worried. I have my Doctorate in Structural Geology and while the immediate part of the San Andreas Fault that runs through Highland is “deadlocked” the San Jacinto fault that runs parallel to the SAF is not. The San Jacinto and many of the other faults take up the slack from the not so active SAF. Moving 30ft is preposterous for this area of the fault. If you look for an earthquake map of Southern California, you’ll see that the San Jacinto fault is far more active with bigger quakes than this area of the San Andreas.
http://scedc.caltech.edu/recent/Maps/117-34.html
Also a quick reply to my other post, I’d be more worried about how all the major commerce routes in/out of southern California run perpendicular to a fault. 15 freeway out through Cajon pass, 5 freeway near Gorman , and the 10 freeway has quite a few fault lines through it as well. If these freeways went or many of the underground natural gas/water lines, then we’d be in trouble. Make sure you all have plenty of food and water!
The San Manuel tribe is a sovereign nation and they are the one’s to blame for allowing their cash cow casino to be built by (or on top of) the fault, don’t blame Highland or the county of San Bernardino. Seems to me now they are filthy rich they could resolve to move the casino again.
Reblogged this on Daily Dose of Crazyness.
Ths is unbelievable! That they would build near and right on top of this monster fault ! Do these people know that their house is sitting on top of the San andreas fault or so close to it ?
There are many, many dangerous faults in California. My family lived there since the Gold Rush. One day, my father stopped at a stop sign and it began to swing wildly.
The car rocked. ‘There is no wind,’ said my mom. My dad said, ‘We are in an earthquake!’
Once years later, I was cooking in the kitchen in Berkeley. I flipped the eggs and they missed the pan entirely. I was really pissed off when I realized the entire house was swinging side to side! Yikes! Another 5.6 earthquake.
Not much different than building houses in areas prone to hurricanes – the same places seem to get hit with extreme storms every 10 to 40 years on average. It’s been over 100 years since a major San Andreas event in any location, so much safer.
Except for one small detail: the longer the period on the San Andreas when there are no earthquakes, the worse it is when it happens. The middle section hasn’t budged in over a century which means the coastal half of the state will jump northwards by dozens of feet!
The second detail one can miss is: earthquakes cause vast fires due to burning stuff suddenly ending up in the wrong places and gas lines exploding, etc.
Oh, and no water due to pipes breaking all over the place…This is what utterly destroyed San Francisco 117 years ago.
I am in San Jacinto California. 1323 exeter ct 92583. Will I jump or stay?
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Patricia Longbottom: you are right smack dab next to the San Andreas fault. Hemet is very vulnerable. I was once in a small quake in your town way back around 1958 (?) when I was a child. My father stopped the car and the stop sign started twisting and turning while the car rocked. We kids thought this was funny back then.