31–40 of 68 posts
Fracking is believed to be a major source of (minor) earthquakes. This article didn't even mention it.
Fracking is believed to be a major source of (minor) earthquakes. This article didn't even mention it.
What does it take to convince people to take risks like this seriously? The challenge is that hypothetical risks 'sometime in the next 50+ years' don't convince people to do things, at least in the US. The pacific northwest is at a much higher risk from an array of faults (not just the cascadia subduction zone) and volcanic hazards but even there, where the risks are very well understood, getting a large region to ta…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is the outcome you're hoping for, though? It's not useful for people to live with vague anxiety. Are there specific solutions we want them to pursue, and that aren't being handled by the government?
He's probably hoping for emergency preparedness, like any sensible person. That would include stronger building codes, evacuation plans and facilities, emergency supplies, etc. Here in Japan, we have all that stuff, and we don't live with "vague anxiety" (certainly nothing like the high anxiety that most Americans live with these days). Big earthquakes are rare, but smaller ones are very common, but everything in soc…
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tornadoes_and_tornado_...
I grew up on the edges of the New Madrid fault area and, while earthquakes were never discussed, we did tornado drills about every two months while in school. After I entered the workforce, that got closer to once a year, but you were still expected to have a plan and supplies. It was basic emergency preparedness, like any sensible person. Granted, big F5 tornados are rare, but small ones were common enough to not even be noteworthy.
Having left that region as an adult, it was a small culture shock meeting people who never had this kind of training. After all, the places I've visited all experience tornados, though not as often as my old home town. Still, the usual attitude I encounter is "I've never seen a tornado - they don't happen here". It's true that tornados don't happen often, just like my birthplace hasn't seen a serious earthquake in my lifetime, but they do happen.
I guess that's why I'm curious about your experiences. I've never been to Japan and I've read enviable reports of your disaster preparedness, but I honestly have no idea how your schools and culture handle tornados.
This stereotype of people in “flyover states” as being uneducated and dense really needs to stop. EDIT Reader heads experiencing flyover - read: "The struggle to understand why sunrises happen in America's heartland"
> In Tennessee, jurisdictions can decide whether to opt in to building codes with earthquake provisions, while other states — like Missouri — don’t have state-wide building codes at all, though there are efforts to change that. I live on the other side of the state from New Madrid and can tell you, there's a 0% chance the Missouri state legislature passes a bill requiring earthquake proofing of buildings. You'd have…
1) telling the two cities that are most of the state’s economy that they can’t have nice things, and
2) reversing successful ballot initiatives when the voters try to have nice things.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bridge maintenance is sorely needed across the whole country. Anyway, the reason this stuff doesn't get enough funding is because the process of sorting out public spending priorities is called politics. Everybody has their own idea about what needs money and how much money should be thrown around. There's no objectively correct way to sort it all out, no means by which we can weigh the relative merits of increased l…
> Bridge maintenance is sorely needed across the whole country. Not just that, but also to rethink how we reinforce them in major waterways or even minor but navigable waterways, if any heavy enough boat can just crash into a support column and take the whole thing down... albeit accidentally in that case.
Most modern bridges do take into account the possibility that there will be collisions. But it is also very hard to protect against a collision with an object that weighs 100k tons or more. By the time the boat is crashing into the bridge it’s too late. The solution is to design better systems around preventing things from getting to that point.
A good analogy is airport security. We are very bad at keeping weapons off planes. The TSA routinely fails to find knives and guns. The reason we haven’t had any more 9/11s isn’t because we made buildings airplane proof or because TSA doesn’t let box cutters through (they absolutely do). It’s because we learned to pre-empt coordinated well organized attacks using intelligence, and we hardened physical security at the cockpit door (I’m guessing mostly the latter).
> In Tennessee, jurisdictions can decide whether to opt in to building codes with earthquake provisions, while other states — like Missouri — don’t have state-wide building codes at all, though there are efforts to change that. I live on the other side of the state from New Madrid and can tell you, there's a 0% chance the Missouri state legislature passes a bill requiring earthquake proofing of buildings. You'd have…
Never been near New Madrid, Missouri. But given its "per capita income...was $22,046" in 2020 and "about 14.80% of families and 21.0% of the population were below the poverty line" [1], I wouldn't be surprised if you put the town in a room, explained the risks, and put forward 0% financing for earthquake proofing, most would reject the offer.
The money it would take to earthquake-proof New Madrid is almost certainly better spent on healthcare and education.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid,_Missouri#Demograph...
> In Tennessee, jurisdictions can decide whether to opt in to building codes with earthquake provisions, while other states — like Missouri — don’t have state-wide building codes at all, though there are efforts to change that. I live on the other side of the state from New Madrid and can tell you, there's a 0% chance the Missouri state legislature passes a bill requiring earthquake proofing of buildings. You'd have…
It’s true. Jefferson City’s favorite things are: 1) telling the two cities that are most of the state’s economy that they can’t have nice things, and 2) reversing successful ballot initiatives when the voters try to have nice things.
When this is the case I wonder if the level of governance selected is too high, and people could achieve their end goal with more local action.
> In Tennessee, jurisdictions can decide whether to opt in to building codes with earthquake provisions, while other states — like Missouri — don’t have state-wide building codes at all, though there are efforts to change that. I live on the other side of the state from New Madrid and can tell you, there's a 0% chance the Missouri state legislature passes a bill requiring earthquake proofing of buildings. You'd have…