East Coast Earthquake 8-23-2011

Steven Bellovin smb at cs.columbia.edu
Wed Aug 24 20:24:53 UTC 2011


On Aug 24, 2011, at 9:44 20AM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:

> On Aug 24, 2011, at 8:55 AM, JC Dill wrote:
>> On 23/08/11 3:13 PM, William Herrin wrote:
>>> A. Our structures aren't built to seismic zone standards. Our
>>> construction workers aren't familiar with*how*  to build to seismic
>>> zone standards. We don't secure equipment inside our buildings to
>>> seismic zone standards.
>> 
>> They should be.
>> They should be.
>> You should.
>> 
>> Earthquakes can happen anywhere.  There's no excuse to fail to build/secure to earthquake standards.
> 
> Tornados can happen anywhere, there's no excuse to fail to build/secure for tornados.
> 
> [Etc.]
> 
> Things that cost money are not done unless the probability of the danger is higher than vanishingly small.  This temblor - at 5.8 with no injuries or fatalities - was the largest earthquake on the entire east coast in 67 years, and the largest in VA in well over a century.  Think of the _trillions_ of dollars which could have been put into healthcare, public safety, hell, better networking equipment :) we could have used instead of making all buildings on the east coast earthquake safe.
> 
It's more complex than that: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/east-coast-earthquakes/
And eastern cities can experience quakes of a magnitude noteworthy even on the West Coast -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston,_South_Carolina#Postbellum_era_.281865.E2.80.931945.29


		--Steve Bellovin, https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb









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