BLOG: Earthquake! Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid. But Be Prepared.

Did you feel the earthquakes on Sunday, Aug. 26? How would you like to feel an earthquake that is hundreds or thousands of times stronger as measured on one of the earthquake scales?

A quake so powerful that if you were standing in the middle of a football field, you could not stand up. You would fall down and stay down until the seasickness, due to the ground visibly rolling under you, passed.

If you were in a building or home taller than two stories, good luck. Almost every building taller than two stories would have significant damage...or fall down. And maybe around you if you were inside it.

Why am I scaring you with this stuff? Because I just felt the little earthquakes today while at home on the second floor of the 3-story mixed use building that I live in in North Beach and GOT that queasy feeling you get when everything around you is moving.

Right after that, I searched for "California Earthquake" on Google and what an eye opener I got from the first related web site that I went to which talked about Sumatra’s 8.6 mega-quake.

Here is a quote from that site—“The new details provide fresh insights into the possibility of ruptures involving multiple faults occurring elsewhere—something that could be important for earthquake-hazard assessment along California's San Andreas fault, which itself is made up of many different segments and is intersected by a number of other faults at right angles.”

Eeeeeek! And how fast would the crashing impact wave of such a mega-quake take to get from the San Andreas fault to where we are in South Orange County?  I calculated from a web site animation that the main wave would reach us about 45 seconds after the first slippage. So even with a rushed TV or radio warning, there’s not much you can do to prepare for a mega quake in THAT amount of time.

There’s a graphic video that shows how long it would take the impact wave from a San Andreas fault to reach the South Orange County region. That’s where I did the calculation about how long it would take the impact wave to reach South Orange County.

Go ahead. Play the video yourself and be afraid! Be very afraid!

Check this quote from a recent LA Weekly story—

Scientists said the Indonesian rocker was larger than they ever thought such a quake "could be,"according to Caltech. It was a 'intraplate strike-slip quake,' similar to what would happen at San Andreas, where much of California, from Baja to San Francisco, is moving north as the rest of America moves south.

In Sumatra, scientists found that this was not only the biggest strike-slip fault temblor ever, but that it set of a series of right-angle ruptures that amplified the shaking, like a block of ice cracking up in the heat.

And yes, it could happen here. The research, published last week in the journal Science Express, argues: “The new details provide fresh insights into the possibility of ruptures involving multiple faults occurring elsewhere--something that could be important for earthquake-hazard assessment along California's San Andreas fault, which itself is made up of many different segments and is intersected by a number of other faults at right angles.

Now, to really scare you (hopefully into getting PREPARED for an earthquake) take a look at CNN newsman Anderson Cooper inside an enclosure that simulates an 8.0 earthquake. Pretty nasty stuff, huh? And note how he and his friends could not have stayed on their feet unless they were holding onto one of the walls.

How do you prepare for THE BIG ONE?  You can move to Kansas and dodge tornados. Or, you can learn about how to prepare your home with proper food, water and medical supplies. A good place to start is at the FEMA checklist for preparedness. Another is the list from the LA Fire Department.

Wikipedia, as usual, offers the most comprehensive list of what to include in your survival kit.

Most of us are blasé about preparedness for...well, most anything that could happen well into the future. (Say, got your cemetary plot reserved and paid for?)

But the big earthquake WILL come here to South Orange County and the equally big question is, will you have enough survival gear, food and water (a gallon a day per person!!!) to live through it?

Maybe it would be good for us all to go to the earthquake preparedness checklist from the University of California. Do it. I did.

Following that advice might just save our lives.