The Plot by Geologists Has Succeeded: You are Ready for the BIG ONE

Note: Please accept that this is tongue-in-cheek semi-parody, and is in no way meant to minimize the viral pandemic that is deeply affecting our society. Please take all appropriate measures to prevent the spread of the virus...

The long years of planning and the endless meetings in secret have finally borne fruit. The geologists have finally prepared American society for the BIG ONE (the BIG earthquake, the BIG volcanic eruption, the BIG hurricane). Straight-forward education didn't work, since no one read the reams of information put out by the hard-working geologists, so we finally had to use the arrival of the Covid-19 virus to make our point: disasters will happen and we have to be ready for them.

It's unfortunate that people had to panic and go running into stores to buy up huge amounts of materials basically unrelated to the virus: the bottled water, the paper towels, the non-perishable foods. But through the power of suggestion, we geologists managed to get people to buy just the kinds of things one would need in the aftermath of a major quake when help and assistance by emergency workers might be days or weeks away.

There is nothing that makes a geologist cringe more than a government official saying something along the lines of “It’s an unforeseen problem. … Came out of nowhere.”. That's almost never true. Every government official has all kinds of emergency planning materials available to them, and presidents have entire government bureaucracies designed to prepare for emergencies and disasters. Unless they disband them, as happened to the White House’s National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense in 2018. Many people no longer remember the words of Bobby Jindal in 2009 in a response to a State-of-the-Union address, but geologists will always remember: he was complaining about “$140 million for something called volcano monitoring. Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.".

It has been interesting (and terrifying) to watch the response of people to the pandemic. Millions didn't take it seriously and continued life as normal. Some understood the warnings of the epidemiologists and started making preparations, buying reasonable amounts of cleaning supplies and disinfectants. It has been a slow-motion disaster that unfolded over several months. Volcanic disasters may be similar; eruptions have precursors that can last for months.

But earthquakes will come on suddenly and without warning. And unlike with the pandemic, the infrastructure of society will be severely compromised. It won't be stores with empty shelves...it will be stores in ruins. The electricity will go off, and with it the faucets and toilets won't have water. The hospitals won't be overwhelmed over a period of days or weeks, they be inundated all at once if they are functioning at all. It's in those kinds of moments that having water, food and emergency first aid supplies can be the difference between a good or bad outcome during a disaster.

There will be some important differences. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are regional, not national disasters. The infrastructure will be destroyed in some places, but will be functioning in others. Because of this, it won't take all that long for emergency workers to begin arriving from outlying areas where the damage isn't so bad.

There is one other really big difference when these geologic disasters strike: we won't be constrained by 'social distancing'. We'll be available to help each other out. Remember the words of Fred Rogers:

For me, as for all children, the world could have come to seem a scary place to live. But I felt secure with my parents, and they let me know that we were safely together whenever I showed concern about accounts of alarming events in the world. There was something else my mother did that I’ve always remembered: “Always look for the helpers,” she’d tell me. “There’s always someone who is trying to help.” I did, and I came to see that the world is full of doctors and nurses, police and firemen, volunteers, neighbors and friends who are ready to jump in to help when things go wrong. 

Strive to be one of the helpers in all that is to come.

For more on earthquake preparedness, especially in the Bay Area, check out:
https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2016/3020/fs20163020.pdf

Its Really Been That Long? 30th Anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake on Thursday

It's Earth Science Week, and "Geoscience is for Everyone" is the theme for this year. Geoscience IS for everyone, because geology dominates the lives of everyone. No one can escape it, for better or worse. Better, when we find inspiration in the awesome forces that have made our planet, and worse for the geologic hazards that exist everywhere on the planet in one form or another. Here in California, one of the premier hazards are the earthquakes that occur here with disturbing irregularity (it would be so much nicer if they followed schedules so we could prepare). I'm writing about the anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake a few days early, but we had two moderate earthquakes in less than 24 hours in Northern California (magnitude 4.5 and 4.7), so seismic things are on my mind.

Two good-sized earthquakes as recorded at Modesto Junior College

We can only share our stories to keep that knowledge at the forefront that will allow us to survive and recover from the major earthquakes to come. Here's my story from 1989, when my teaching career was just beginning.

No, this isn't what happens (credit: A. June)

On October 17th, 1989 at 5:04 PM, my physical geology laboratory had just finished and almost everyone had gone home to watch the World Series. A couple of students were helping me (it was Maureen and Sonny; funny how I remember the names of the first students I had better than the ones I had last semester). We were 100 kilometers from the epicenter, so when the seismic waves started to shake our building, the movement was a strong rolling motion instead of sharp vibrations. We looked at swaying TV monitors, and commented that it was an earthquake. It was a most scholarly discussion, actually. We realized the shaking was not stopping, and we thought we could sense the direction of the quake as well. We started to guess where it might be happening, but when the shaking reached the 40 second mark (the energy was spreading out, it lasted only 10 seconds or so near the epicenter), we realized it was a major event, and that fatalities were probably occurring (and unfortunately we were right). The deodar trees out the window were whipping back and forth as if they were in a high wind. The strangest part for me was the unconscious decision I was making as the shaking progressed. Despite having a quiet scholarly discussion, my body was moving from the front of the podium to the back, where there was a nice solid space to hide under. I would have dived under if the quake had lasted any longer.

Well, this can happen, but most people survive, even in the worst of quakes (credit: A. June)

In hindsight, I should have been a bit more aggressive about taking shelter under the desk. An analysis of our building a year or two later revealed an architectural weakness that suggested the building could collapse if the seismic waves hit it from a particular direction. A seismic retrofit a decade later included some massive shear walls in the lab I taught in.

Meanwhile, at the city library, my children were making me proud. At the time of the quake, there were huge sailing ship models on display, in some cases right on top of the book stacks. The stacks were not reinforced or braced, so there was a real potential for injuries if the quake was strong enough to knock those stacks over. I was told that most people were just standing there watching the bookstacks swaying, but my kids, my well-trained and intelligent kids were the only people in the room to take shelter under the sturdy study tables. Luckily, as I said before, we were on the fringes of the effects of the earthquake and no one was hurt.

The double-decker freeway in Oakland. It was not designed for the amount of shaking that occurred.

The Loma Prieta earthquake, a magnitude 6.9 event at a depth of 11 miles, was a tragedy: 63 people died, and 3,700 were injured. If the World Series game between the A's and the Giants hadn't been about to start, the death toll would have been much higher. Traffic was stunningly light that afternoon. Despite this, the Bay Area was in chaos for days, and months passed before life got back to normal. We were on the fringes, so instead of pain and suffering, we had a profound learning experience that was remembered by my students for the next decade and a half. But it has been 30 years now, and many of my students weren't born when the quake happened. Few of them have felt a quake at all. The large quakes like Loma Prieta and Northridge are ancient history, and there is less of that innate knowledge of what they should do when one hits. Few admit to having any kind of emergency kits at home, and they have no plan for what to do when the next big one hits.

Fault studies across California make it clear that more big tremors are coming, almost surely within the next decade or two. We educators must keep these past events alive in the minds of our students so they will be ready for these events when they come.

This is an abridged version of a blogpost from 2009.

Earth as Inspiration: Memories on the 29th Anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake

It's Earth Science Week, and "Earth as Inspiration" is the theme for this year. Inspiration can take many forms. Sometimes it is awe-inspiring beauty, something our planet has in great bounty. But the earth can kill, and inspiration can be related to preparation for disasters.

No, this isn't what happens (credit: A. June)

On October 17th at 5:04 PM, my physical geology laboratory had just finished and almost everyone had gone home to watch the World Series. A couple of students were helping me (it was Maureen and Sonny; funny how I remember the names of the first students I had better than the ones I had last semester). We were 100 kilometers from the epicenter, so when the seismic waves started to shake our building, the movement was a strong rolling motion instead of sharp vibrations. We looked at swaying TV monitors, and commented that it was an earthquake. It was a most scholarly discussion, actually. We realized the shaking was not stopping, and we thought we could sense the direction of the quake as well. We started to guess where it might be happening, but when the shaking reached the 40 second mark (the energy was spreading out, it lasted only 10 seconds or so near the epicenter), we realized it was a major event, and that fatalities were probably occurring (and unfortunately we were right). The deodar trees out the window were whipping back and forth as if they were in a high wind. The strangest part for me was the unconscious decision I was making as the shaking progressed. Despite having a quiet scholarly discussion, my body was moving from the front of the podium to the back, where there was a nice solid space to hide under. I would have dived under if the quake had lasted any longer.

Well, this can happen, but most people survive, even in the worst of quakes (credit: A. June)

In hindsight, I should have been a bit more aggressive about taking shelter under the desk. An analysis of our building a year or two later revealed an architectural weakness that suggested the building could collapse if the seismic waves hit it from a particular direction. A seismic retrofit a decade later included some massive shear walls in the lab I taught in.

Meanwhile, at the city library, my children were making me proud. At the time of the quake, there were huge sailing ship models on display, in some cases right on top of the book stacks. The stacks were not reinforced or braced, so there was a real potential for injuries if the quake was strong enough to knock those stacks over. I was told that most people were just standing there watching the bookstacks swaying, but my kids, my well-trained and intelligent kids were the only people in the room to take shelter under the sturdy study tables. Luckily, as I said before, we were on the fringes of the effects of the earthquake and no one was hurt.

The double-decker freeway in Oakland. It was not designed for the amount of shaking that occurred.

The Loma Prieta earthquake, a magnitude 6.9 event at a depth of 11 miles, was a tragedy: 63 people died, and 3,700 were injured. If the World Series game between the A's and the Giants hadn't been about to start, the death toll would have been much higher. Traffic was stunningly light that afternoon. Despite this, the Bay Area was in chaos for days and months passed before life got back to normal. We were on the fringes, so instead of pain and suffering, we had a profound learning experience that was remembered by my students for the next decade and a half. But it has been 29 years now, and many of my students weren't born when the quake happened. Few of them have felt a quake at all. The large quakes like Loma Prieta and Northridge are ancient history, and there is less of that innate knowledge of what they should do when one hits. Few admit to having any kind of emergency kits at home, and they have no plan for what to do when the next big one hits.

Fault studies across California make it clear that more big tremors are coming, almost surely within the next decade or two. We educators must keep these past events alive in the minds of our students so they will be ready for these events when they come.

This is an abridged version of a blogpost from 2009.

28th Anniversary of the Loma Prieta Earthquake - It Was a Warning That is Still Operative

What a different world... on Oct. 17, 1989, there were no smart phones, the internet barely existed, and we still depended on things like newspapers, television and radio to keep up with the world. Most of my current students had not yet been born, and that means that most of my students have never felt or experienced a major earthquake. Today we joke that when the BIG ONE hits, the tweets and Instagram posts will outrace the P-waves across the surface of the planet (there is a small bit of truth in the joke).

Earthquakes are not a joking matter though, and it is sobering to think that damage of a magnitude 7.8 quake in Los Angeles or San Francisco will have effects that will put California into a world of hurt not all that different than what is happening now in Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands. Although we have had 28 years since our vivid warning in the hills above Santa Cruz, we are still not as ready as we should be, and many of our fellow citizens are complacent about earthquake safety. The ongoing experiences of hurricanes and wildfires across our country remind us of the importance of being ready with water, food, first aid, communications plans, and escape routes. As has been sadly demonstrated, we cannot depend on the federal government to act on our behalf in an effective manner, given the depletion of their resources following other major disasters, and stupid politics currently infecting Washington D.C.

I have yet to be in the middle of a major tremor; I've been on the outskirts of several, including 1989, and the 1971 Sylmar earthquake in Southern California. I was on the scene of the 1992 Landers quake (magnitude 7.3) within a week to see the ripped up ground. My experiences were mostly of the learning kind, not that of personal loss. Still, there is something to be learned in every experience. What follows is an abridged version of my story from a post on the 20th anniversary.

In 1989 I was a brand-new instructor at Modesto Junior College, in my third semester. I taught classes in the old 1950's-era Science Building on our east campus, up on the second floor. I had all the modern teaching technology; there was a chalkboard, and two television monitors hung from the ceiling for showing those newfangled "videotape cassettes". The monitors also served as my decidedly low-tech seismometers. They shook noticeably during the smallest of earthquakes (most memorably during a class test on earthquakes; no one but me even noticed).

On October 17th at 5:04 PM, my physical geology laboratory had just finished and almost everyone had gone home to watch the World Series. A couple of students were helping me (it was Maureen and Sonny; funny how I remember the names of the first students I had better than the ones I had last semester). We were 100 kilometers from the epicenter, so when the seismic waves started to shake our building, the movement was a strong rolling motion instead of sharp vibrations. We looked at swaying TV monitors, and commented that it was an earthquake. It was a most scholarly discussion, actually. We realized the shaking was not stopping, and we thought we could sense the direction of the quake as well. We started to guess where it might be happening, but when the shaking reached the 40 second mark (the energy was spreading out, it lasted only 10 seconds or so near the epicenter), we realized it was a major event, and that fatalities were probably occurring (and unfortunately we were right). The deodar trees out the window were whipping back and forth as if they were in a high wind. The strangest part for me was the unconscious decision I was making as the shaking progressed. Despite having a quiet scholarly discussion, my body was moving from the front of the podium to the back, where there was a nice solid space to hide under. I would have dived under if the quake had lasted any longer.

The Cypress Structure in Oakland where 44 people died

In hindsight, I should have been a bit more aggressive about taking shelter under the desk. An analysis of our building a year or two later revealed an architectural weakness that suggested the building could collapse if the seismic waves hit it from a particular direction. A seismic retrofit a decade later included some massive shear walls in the lab I taught in.

Meanwhile, at the city library, my children were making me proud. At the time of the quake, there were huge sailing ship models on display, in some cases right on top of the book stacks. The stacks were not reinforced or braced, so there was a real potential for injuries if the quake was strong enough to knock those stacks over. I was told that most people were just standing there watching the bookstacks swaying, but my kids, my well-trained and intelligent kids were the only people in the room to take shelter under the sturdy study tables. Luckily, as I said before, we were on the fringes of the effects of the earthquake and no one was hurt.

The Loma Prieta earthquake, a magnitude 6.9 event at a depth of 11 miles, was a tragedy: 63 people died, and 3,700 were injured. The Bay Area was in chaos for days and months passed before life got back to normal. We were on the fringes, so instead of pain and suffering, we had a profound learning experience that was remembered by my students for the next decade and a half. But it has been 28 years now, and as I said, many of my students weren't born when the quake happened. Few of them have felt a quake at all. The large quakes like Loma Prieta and Northridge are ancient history, and there is less of that innate knowledge of what they should do when one hits. Few admit to having any kind of emergency kits at home, and they have no plan for what to do when the next big one hits.

Fault studies across California make it clear that more big tremors are coming, almost surely within the next decade or two. We educators must keep these past events alive in the minds of our students so they will be ready for these events when they come.

I'm sorry I can't provide a source for these photos. They are scans from a slide set that I purchased many years ago, soon after the quake occurred.