Outside Magazine did a great article about the Cascadia Subduction Zone a few years ago.
http://www.outsideonline.com/1819046/totally-psyched-full-ri...
The Really Big One
271–280 of 286 posts
Re: The Really Big One
#272I used to live in Portland, and thought about this impending catastrophe a lot. Once -- under the influence of intoxicants, most likely -- I came up with a way of dramatically reducing its impact. It's a batshit crazy solution which will never actually happen -- but even when I'm sober, I still think it would work. Here's what I'm thinking: the major problem with a disaster like this is the uncertainty surrounding it…
You stole my idea for "solving" the middle east!
Re: The Really Big One
#273Is there any work on inducing earthquakes to relieve stress before it builds to catastrophe levels?
There was a bit of discussion on that in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9733034
Ok, now I have to ask, why the down votes on a link to a previous article directly related to the parent's question?
Re: The Really Big One
#274Meanwhile the barrier to a proper early warning system for the west coast is a whopping $15.6 million a year, of which California has managed to get a whole $5 million from Congress so far - http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-quake-early-wa... Honestly, I'm a little unclear as to why we are even going to Congress for this, instead of the governments of CA, WA and OR agreeing to divide up the sum based on p…
How about a kickstarter?!
That's a fine idea. Now that you mention it I'm surprised it hasn't been tried already (unless it has and failed...). I'll look into it.
Re: The Really Big One
#275So how can you escape from a 10-meter tsunami, like the 11-meter Tohoku tsunami that wrecked Fukushima Dai-Ichi, assuming you have years to prepare? You could build buildings that could withstand the water flowing around them, as the nuclear reactor center itself did; but windows that can survive not just ten meters of water pressure but also cars and trees being dashed against them by the tsunami are going to be les…
Hey, neighbor. That new house you're building looks an awful lot like a submarine! Why is that?
Re: The Really Big One
#276Earlier 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…
Well, it would be an amazing business opportunity for yacht outfitters.
Re: The Really Big One
#277There are roughly 3 million people in this area. The really big earthquake may cause death of 13,000 people - or about ~0.5% of the population. Chance of that happening over next 50 years is 10%. In other words, if you were living in this zone, your chance of dyeing due to a big earthquake over next 50 years is about 0.05%.
It occurs to me that your chance of dyeing over next 50 years for reasons other than earthquake is 90%. Nevertheless, my hope from this article is that government will invest much more in early warning systems and enact laws to build structures to withstand such natural disasters. As it appears now, government is starving off these kind of projects from funding.
Re: The Really Big One
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fracking seems to trigger/create quakes. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/24/earthquakes-fra...
Right, but there's a big difference between triggering a quake and triggering a slow, controlled quake that relieves pressure in the intended fashion.
I imagine the difference is what we can do vs. what is far beyond today's ability. And triggering a quake is fine even if it releases full force assuming the payoff is we get (for example sake only) a 7.1 quake today and avoid a 9.1 in 100 years.
Re: The Really Big One
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
The data could be lost. Part of DiRT is ensuring that the result of losing N data centers is not "oops we lost 20% of GMail users data permanently". On the scale of devastation this article is describing, none of Google's servicing being obliterated really matters but I'm personally pretty glad Google is prepared for multiple, massive scale disasters to happen at once.
The financial disaster would be horrendous. Look at the number of companies using google for email. When the towers went down in 2001, the first business priority of many companies was getting email back online. It's an incredibly important part of a business.
Reminds me of when I was doing some consultancy for large oil/energy trading company in London. There was huge DR initiative going on at the time, and one thing they realized after surveying the business is that, if worst came to worst, they could still conduct business if they lost every other business system, as long as e-mail was available.