Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Just south of us, they are not prepared for earthquakes

Article


Is the U.S. Earthquake Ready? Not by a Long Shot


That darn US, it's not ready for an earthquake.


As for the rest of the country, "I'd say we're pretty much unprepared," said Hamilton.
The New Madrid fault, which runs through the central Mississippi Valley, poses a major worry for seismologists. It was the site of major earthquake activity in 1811 and 1812.
"The New Madrid earthquakes, if those were to reoccur, that would be a disaster on the scale of what happened in Japan. Very little has been done to prepare for the occurrence of that event."
And what if a large quake were to occur on the densely populated East Coast?
"Structures just aren't designed to handle earthquakes," Hamilton said. Earthquake preparedness gets "worse the further east you go."

They have acknowledged the problem, and have come up with an action plan.  But are they doing it right now?  NO.  They have looked at the geology, and they know what will happen if a Japan-odds earthquake hits the eastern US.  Many cities have an earthquake scenario.  But boy, they just aren't doing anything.....  :)

Good thing we aren't down there with all those earthquakes.

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