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The Really Big One

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Re: The Really Big One

#151

Post by callmeed »

michaelvkpdx wrote: post #80

Silicon Valley refugees and people complaining about Bay Area prices, please note that this is 100% true. Portland will be completely wiped out within the next couple years by a giant earthquake followed by a Sasquatch Apocalypse. Don't move here. You will die. But please visit and enjoy your stay! Love, Portland

Also, please don't move to San Luis Obispo / Avila Beach. We have a nuclear power plant on a bluff near a fault line.

Come visit though. We have great tri-tip and outdoor activities.

Re: The Really Big One

#152

Post by pavedwalden »

protomyth wrote: post #135
chrisfosterelli wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could find some definitive resources on whether or not a building would be considered safe in a tsunami, and if it would be better to go for higher floors or lower floors. I imagine that after such a large earth quake, many buildings would be unstable and potentially open to collapse from the force of a tsunami. I'm sure going to higher ground would be a better idea if possible, but say if it was iffy to get…

Remembering a lot of the video from Japan, it looked like most of videos were from people who went into parking garages (concrete)[1]. Regular buildings took a pretty big hit, but I'm not sure how the local building code / materials played in that. 1) I'm going with the logic that surviving video person uploading to youtube is probably a good sample of the "worked" side of the equation.

I suppose parking garages would let a lot of the water flow through the open sides, whereas a regular building would receive a lot of force against the exterior walls.

Re: The Really Big One

#153

Post by jodrellblank »

waynecochran wrote: post #99
Locke1689 wrote: post #20

Hmm, in the spirit of thinking of worst-case scenarios, most of the engineering talent for Amazon and Microsoft is in Seattle and Redmond, respectively. There's even a sizable percentage of Google cloud platform in Fremont and Kirkland. Even if most of the employees live, it's likely basic infrastructure will be a disaster for quite a while. Maybe Google would be able to offload ops work to Mountain View, but it seem…

Not only would there be significant downtime of major internet services, but lots of people would die as well!

It's almost like you didn't read the article.

Re: The Really Big One

#154

Post by chipsy »

freehunter wrote: post #115
nappy-doo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the Richter scale, the difference a full step (7.0 to 8.0) is about a factor of 32. So if we're trying to mitigate an 8.0 earthquake every 100 years, you're talking about a magnitude 7.0 every 3 years to release the same amount of energy. Most engineering structures on the west coastare built to withstand a 6-7. When a magnitude 8 comes (and it will come, and in some sense we're coming out of the stress shadow fro…

And even if they were built to withstand a mag 7 earthquake every three years, the things inside of them likely won't be. Imagine the engineering that would have to go into designing every single item in your house to withstand a deadly earthquake on a regular basis. No more popping out to Ikea to grab the same furniture everyone else uses. Your TV stand is on springs. Your TV is on springs connected to the TV stand…

My mom's strategy for the biggest items: lash them to the walls so that they don't topple or walk out of position. This doesn't solve the problems of falling plates, but it does mitigate death-by-cabinet.

That said 80% of the benefits are in location. If you're on flat bedrock, located away from the coast, you just don't feel the most intense shaking, and you won't face a tsunami.

Re: The Really Big One

#155

Post by antod »

notNow wrote: post #129

A heads up: this peace is 6.3K+ word long and according to my estimate it would take you around 45 mins to finish reading it. Enjoy!

Well, its title is "The really big one" after all.

Re: The Really Big One

#156

Post by scarmig »

someear wrote: post #56

I like to think about how I'd react in the 15 minutes I have between the earthquake and tsunami. How tall would this tsunami be? Quick googling shows the tallest one ever is 524 meters. Assuming the tsunami is that tall, going into tall buildings might not work - tallest building in Seattle, Columbia Tower, is 287 meters (+50m in elevation increase), and is a few blocks from the waterfront . Best bet is to run/bike u…

Out of curiosity, I looked up estimates of what I would guess might have been the largest tsunami in recent history--the one associated with the KT event 65 million years ago. And, yes, it created tsunamis much larger than we've ever seen.

To put it in perspective, it seems like a 10km asteroid would cause a 1.5km tsunami along the nearby coasts if it crashed in the middle of the (contemporary) Gulf of Mexico; a 200m tsunami if it crashed in the middle of the Indian Ocean; and a 100m tsunami if it crashed in the middle of the Pacific.[0]

Some coastal areas would experience this more than others because of geological formations, naturally, even holding distance from the impact site constant.

[0] I'm not sure how much this depends on angle of impact, speed of impact, and composition, if it does at all.

Re: The Really Big One

#157

Post by kraig »

alxv wrote: post #49
Locke1689 wrote: post #20

Hmm, in the spirit of thinking of worst-case scenarios, most of the engineering talent for Amazon and Microsoft is in Seattle and Redmond, respectively. There's even a sizable percentage of Google cloud platform in Fremont and Kirkland. Even if most of the employees live, it's likely basic infrastructure will be a disaster for quite a while. Maybe Google would be able to offload ops work to Mountain View, but it seem…

Google runs a company-wide disaster recovery testing event every year. Earthquakes are among the numerous scenarios simulated. https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2371516

tsunami monkey?

Re: The Really Big One

#158

Post by waynecochran »

jodrellblank wrote: post #153
waynecochran wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only would there be significant downtime of major internet services, but lots of people would die as well!

It's almost like you didn't read the article.

I read the whole thing in gripping detail with Mt St Helens out my office window... I was imagining the horror of not being able to blog about my death as the Tsunami was approaching...

Re: The Really Big One

#159

Post by notNow »

antod wrote: post #155
notNow wrote: post #129

A heads up: this peace is 6.3K+ word long and according to my estimate it would take you around 45 mins to finish reading it. Enjoy!

Well, its title is "The really big one" after all.

Shouldn't it have been "The really LOOOONG one" instead?

Re: The Really Big One

#160

Post by dangerlibrary »

tempestn wrote: post #147
jofer wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a matter of magnitude. A magnitude 2 earthquake releases ~30x the energy as a magnitude 1 earthquake. A magnitude 3 releases ~900x the energy of a magnitude 1. You can see where this is going. (Note, the "shaking intensity" of the earthquake doesn't increase as quite as rapidly as the amount of energy released, but the relationship depends on a lot more than the earthquake's size.) Let's say we were to trigger m…

So, my understanding from what you wrote is that it may indeed be possible to slowly release the accumulated pressure, but we don't really understand how that occurs naturally yet, let alone how to trigger it artificially.

Given the regularity of previous large quakes, and the fact that the described magnitude 6 quake takes place over a month, it would take longer to relieve the pressure via month-long magnitude 6 quakes than we have until the next large quake. Best case scenario - you could put it off for a few dozen years.
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