Free Republic

WASHINGTON - 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. The figures are hypothetical, from a model published in May by government researchers studying the Puente Hills fault under the city. Scientists warn that there's little doubt a major quake will hit California in coming years or decades, though many scenarios are not as disastrous as Puente Hills. As was the case with...

LOS ANGELES - A recently mapped, still-active fault line that snakes beneath downtown Los Angeles is capable of generating major earthquakes (news - web sites), but only about once every 2,000 years, according to a new study. At least four earthquakes of estimated magnitudes 7.2 to 7.5 have struck over the last 11,000 years on the Puente Hills fault, which was first mapped just four years ago. A segment of the fault last ruptured in 1987 with a magnitude-6 earthquake (news - web sites). The study is the first to show how often and with how much punch large quakes...