Posted on 04/22/2003 3:41:03 PM PDT by blam
Big quake 'certain' in San Francisco by 2032
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
23 April 2003
San Francisco is almost certain to suffer a severe earthquake in the next 30 years, which could uproot tens of thousands of buildings and kill hundreds of people in California's densely populated Bay Area, a detailed study by the United States Geological Survey predicts.
The study, compiled by 100 geologists, disaster management experts, politicians and academics, said there was a 62 per cent chance of a devastating quake with a magnitude of 6.7 or greater on the Richter scale between now and 2032. The chance of an earthquake of magnitude 6.0 or higher was more than 80 per cent.
One earthquake expert, Mary Lou Zoback, told the San Francisco Chronicle: "When you integrate all the estimates over the entire region, a severely damaging quake with a magnitude greater than 6 becomes a certainty."
Fear of the Big One is nothing new for a city devastated by the combined effects of earth tremors and gas fires in 1906. The last major earthquake in the area, in 1989, struck the uninhabited Santa Cruz mountains but still caused havoc in San Francisco, where a motorway flyover flipped over, 63 people died, thousands more were injured and 16,000 buildings were subsequently declared unusable.
The new study comes as the latest bad news for a city that has gone from dotcom boom to bust and watched its tourism business dwindle under the twin pressures of recession and fears of a terrorist attack.
International risk analysts say the prospect of either an earthquake or an attack on a San Francisco landmark, or both, makes the city the most dangerous place in the world. A recent report by Munich Re, a German insurance group, said San Francisco was second only to Tokyo on the list of cities at risk of natural disaster.
When the risk of a terrorist attack is added, the city appears to be an insurer's worst nightmare
(No mention of the AIDS epidemic)
Luke 10
8 And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you:
9 And heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.
10 But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say,
11 Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.
12 But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city.
I've been living in the Bay Area since 1985, and every year since then (and many before) I have heard that the Big One was coming within 30 years. I'm almost 20 years into the first 30 year prediction, apparently with another 30 years to go.
-PJ
....is this figure right?
Oh, is that why the tourism has dwindled. I thought it might have something to do with:
1. Hoards of homeless drug addicts and vagrants badgering people for money on every corner, and urinating/defecating on the streets, in the doorways, in the parks, and in the fountains.
2. A collective group of inhabitants that are so far to the left and outside the bounds of mainstream American values, that most parents wouldn't want their children to witness the freak-shows that pass for residents of San Francisco. Remember, SF decided that taxpayers have to foot the bill for sex change operations for it's "trans-gender" city employees.
3. That SF has become "ground zero" for the (often violent) anti-war/anti-Bush/anti-America protest rallies. Who wants to visit a city where the "peaceniks" are armed with Molotov cocktails and socks full of rocks--and where the city DA releases these criminals after the police arrest them.
4. That SF is a city on the verge of a health meltdown. With rampant AIDS and hepatitis, combined with streets so unsanitary, that the city has taken to spraying them down at night with chlorine bleach (see item 1 above). And SARS is sure to follow.
Hey, I'll take a recession, earthquake, and even terrorists any day compared to the crap that goes on in San Francisco.
Not the way the experts do, as I understand it.
-PJ
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.