I have noticed recently that interruption of electricity is reported increasingly breathlessly.
40 years ago it was expected that we’d lose power for hours or days several times a winter. No particularly huge giant deal.
But I guess we’ve gotten increasingly dependent, and view such interruption as enormous suffering.
Loss of electricity can seem like no big deal (unless you go without for more than a week like we did after a storm). But consider what a quake can do to gas lines.
Very close friends of ours lost their house in the San Bruno gas explosion a couple years ago. Their home was right at the place where a gas line blew, and theirs was one of three homes to instantly be blown away. They were fortunate that mutual friends begged them to go out to dinner an hour before it happened, so they survived. Other neighbors perished. Their home on Earl Avenue was two blocks from the San Andreas fault line, but blame was put on the utility provider.
I'm just saying, a large quake could rip and rupture gas lines, causing major fires. Depending on the severity, there might be no escaping an explosion and fire. People never consider the gas lines underground when thinking about earthquakes.