September 14, 2005
From the NO SHIT department
Presented without comment:
From AP/ Yahoo!: Major Quake Could Be Worse Than Katrina
"As many as 18,000 people dead. More than $250 billion in damages. Hundreds of thousands of people left homeless. That's not the latest estimate of Hurricane Katrina's toll on the Gulf Coast. That's a worst-case scenario if a major earthquake were to hit Los Angeles. ... California has been hit by significant quakes about every 15 years over the past century. Experts say there's a better-than 60 percent chance that a quake with a magnitude around 6.7 will hit Southern California or the Bay Area within decades."
No shit...
Posted by caltechgirl at September 14, 2005 07:49 PM | TrackBackYep.
Posted by: Ith at September 14, 2005 08:03 PM18,000 dead? From a 6.7?
Sorry, I gotta call bullshit on that one.
Posted by: KG at September 14, 2005 09:34 PMWhen you consider that we have a levee built on a fault line in the SF/Sacto region, 18,000 dead from a 6.7 is nothing.
Posted by: Da Goddess at September 17, 2005 11:51 AMYes, the levees are now being talked about as an earthquake danger. That wasn't happening (to the best of my knowledge) before Katrina.
At least for the Sac/SJ River Delta, there aren't too many people living there. I suppose Stockton could face problems, but I don't think enough water passes through to cause a catastrophe. A real catastrophe would be any serious damage to the pumping stations that send water down the CA Aqueduct to Southern California.
18,000 dead from a 6.7 is possible I suppose, if disease takes off in the affected areas. Hopefully the CA Office of Emergency Services is taking notes from Katrina to keep such an outcome out of the realm of reality.
By the way, Caltechgirl, how is the Bay Area earthquake tape I gave GMT? It seems more realistic and prophetic after the hurricane. Even after I watched it last spring, I didn't buy the idea that thousands could be dead from a Bay Area quake.
Posted by: Ben at September 18, 2005 08:54 PM
