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Remove or secure hanging plants or lamps.
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Remove glass bottles from medicine cabinets and from or around bathtubs. After an earthquake you may need to use the tub for a personal water reservoir, and one full of broken glass would not meet that need.
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Consider replacing kitchen-cabinet latches with a type that will not come open in a major quake.
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Secure your water heater with metal strapping.
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Check brick fireplaces and walls for stability. If falling bricks or masonry blocks could come through the ceiling, use plywood sheathing to provide a protective barrier.
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Keep breakables and heavy objects on low shelves everywhere in the home.
Step Four
Determine How You Are Going to Survive Without Outside Help for Up to Three Days:
In a major earthquake, municipal rescue and emergency facilities will be overwhelmed for miles around. You and your family will very likely be on your own for up to three days without electricity, water, gas, or other services. Hold a family roundtable discussion of what you would need for survival, and spend a few hours on a Saturday afternoon rounding up the items, such as:
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Flashlight and batteries.
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Portable radio and batteries.
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First-aid kit
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Medicines, especially an emergency supply of any prescriptive medicines of life-threatening importance.
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Extra clothing in a safe place, such as a trunk near the front of your garage.
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Sufficient food and water in plastic containers.
Survival is not luck! Even the worst earthquake possible, such as Alaska, 1964, is very survivable, and the wood-frame American home is the most resilient structure possible for riding out such a cataclysm, but not if a tumbled water heater starts a fire, or family members are hit by falling objects, or no first-aid help is available due to lack of planning. No matter where you live in the United States, knowing these basics and doing the brief and relatively easy things each family should do to prepare for something that we hope will never occur (except in Los Angeles, where it is a certainty) is just good sense.
This is not a complete list or a definitive checklist, but simply a general guide to get you thinking about how to utilize the knowledge we have to prevent earthquake tragedies.
For pamphlets and more information, contact any of the following organizations:
FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), Washington, D.C., or your local office in major cities listed under U.S. Government. SCEPP (Southern California Earthquake Preparedness Project), 600 South Commonwealth Avenue, Suite 1100, Los Angeles, CA 90005; 213-739-6695.
BAREPP (Bay Area Earthquake Preparedness Project), Metrocenter, 101 8th Street, Suite 152, Oakland, CA 94607; 415-540-2713.
Tennessee Earthquake Information Center (a function of the Center for Earthquake Research and Information of Memphis States University), 901-454-2007.
References
(Narrative Bibliography)
Cold, alphabetical listings of source material seldom get read, but there are numerous sources to which I would like to point the casual reader, the serious student, or the curious scientist alike if further information on any aspect of this story is desired. Therefore, the following is a brief review, by chapter and by chapter groups, of where to find more detailed information. In the case of professional papers and books, each will have a wealth of additional, formal citations that can take you into the deepest levels of the scientific underpinning of each subject.
First, there are a few basic publications available in most libraries that will give you an excellent introduction to this entire subject, and one by Charles Richter that is absolutely required as the starting point in any serious seismological education:
For a thorough layman’s overview, the book Earthquake by Bryce Walker and the editors of Time-Life Books (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life, 1982) is highly recommended. Frankly, I kept expecting my research to prove the book excessively shallow or out of date, but it withstood the tests very well. If read carefully, it is an outstanding threshold primer, and the excellent photographs and illustrations throughout give a visceral feel for the subject from many angles, including the deep historical.
Second, the bedrock bible of first-year seismology is still Charles F. Richter’s Elementary Seismology (NY: W. H. Freeman, 1958). Another set of excellent basic books is Dr. Bruce Bolt’s Earthquakes: A Primer (NY: W. H. Freeman, 1978), and Earthquakes and Volcanoes (NY: W. H. Freeman, 1980). These are academically oriented, but if you get the bug to know more than the average layman, dive into them with note pad in hand. You’ll be fascinated.
Chapter 1
The Great Quake in the Pacific Northwest’s Future This rapidly developing area regarding the seismic potential of the Pacific Northwest and the Cascadia Subduction Zone can be researched in greater detail through the following pivotal papers:
1. Brian Atwater’s initial evidence can be sampled in an article published in Science in 1987, Vol. 236, pp. 942–944, entitled “Evidence for Great Holocene earthquakes along the outer coast of Washington state.”
Also see Atwater, Brian F. (1988). “Geologic studies for seismic zonation of the Puget lowland, in National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program, Summaries of Technical Reports,” Vol. 25: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 88–16, pp. 120–133.
2. The professional papers that sparked Brian Atwater’s interest were those of Dr. Thomas Heaton and Dr. Stephen Hartzell, summarized in a Science article in 1987, Vol. 236 (same volume as the first Atwater article listed above), pp. 162–168, entitled “Earthquake Hazards on the Cascadia Subduction zone.”
Also see:
Heaton, Thomas H., and Hiroo Kanamori, “Seismic Potential Associated with Subduction in the Northwestern United States,” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 74, No. 3, pp. 933–941, June 1984.
Hartzell, Stephen H., Thomas H. Heaton, “Teleseismic Time Functions for Large, Shallow Subduction Zone Earthquakes,” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 75, No. 4, pp. 965–1004, August 1985.
Chapters 2–8
The Great Alaska Quake of 1964 and Its Consequences For those who would like to delve further into this momentous event, I would send you first to the library to peruse the copies (no longer in print) of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Alaska Earthquake Series, a group of six professional papers with associated maps published in the years following 1964 by the USGS/Government Printing Office. I would also refer you to the subsequent bound-volume series by the same name published by the National Academy of Sciences, for which the formal citation is: Committee on the Alaska Earthquake of the Division of Earth Sciences, The Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964, Vols. 1–8, National Academy of Sciences, 1973.
Also see:
Engle, Eloise, Earthquake! The Story of Alaska’s Good Friday Disaster (NY: John Day, 1966).
Grantz, Arthur, George Plafker, et al, Alaska’s Good Friday Earthquake, March 27, 1964, a Preliminary Geologic Evaluation (Government Printing Office, 1964). Note: This was the report that George Plafker, Art Grantz, and Rueben Kachadoorian managed to produce within one month of the quake through nonstop effort.
Wood, Fergus, ed., The Prince William Sound, Alaska Earthquake of 1964 and Aftershocks (Government Printing Office, 1966).
The Library of the University of Alaska at Anchorage can assist as well with back newspaper copies from the period, which are always rich in detail that does not percolate down through the years to many of the books and other distilled accounts of a major event. Specifically, the special-edition copy of the Anchorage Times that was heroically cranked out on the Sunday following the quake by Bob Atwood, Bill Tobin, et al, is both a collector’s piece and a graphic report (Anchorage Times Extra, March 29, 1964).<
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To dig deeper into the history of the Valdez experience, contact the Valdez Museum and the City Library, both of which can guide you to the proper people and source material.
In Seward, librarian Jackie Deck of the Seward Library and Mr. Lee Poleske of the museum are excellent starting points. The library contains a unique file of written accounts of the earthquake by 1964 Seward residents. Some very wise individual rounded up the citizenry in the weeks of grief and disruption following the event and asked them to write out in complete detail what they went through. Facts and experiences, thoughts and observations that would fade into obscurity within years if not months were thusly preserved, and through these accounts I was able to reconstruct rather exacting models of a massively confused sequence of events spanning a mere five minutes. Not only do I commend them to you, I would hope some philanthropically minded individual would consider a grant to the library to organize and reproduce that entire file. I would also recommend anyone caught in a future civic upheaval follow the same example, collecting written eyewitness accounts within days of the event. Not only is posterity served, the very fabric of human experience depends on the recording of such detail for future understanding.
The situation with respect to earthquake preparedness and the lessons not learned in Anchorage is very well treated by Dr. Lidia Selkregg and Dr. Jane Preuss, et al., in a book previously cited in the text, but worth repetition here: Seismic Hazard Mitigation: Planning and Policy Implementation, The Alaska Case, Selkregg and Preuss, et al., printed under a National Science Foundation Grant (CEE 8112632) at the University of Alaska in 1984, and available through the university’s library (limited availability).
Chapter 9
En Route to St. Louis In researching the history of earthquake seismicity in the United States, I wanted to drive home the point that this is under no circumstances just a West Coast problem, as too many uninformed people continue to insist. For late, though technical, treatments of just how serious a problem New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., and the entire Eastern seaboard face, see the U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Services Section reports on the series of earthquake hazard conferences that began in 1978 and continue through this day. Specifically, with respect to Eastern seismicity, see: Open-File Reports on Conferences XV (1982), XVIII (1983), XXI (1983), XXIII (1983), and specifically concerning the threat to New York, XXIX (1985). Contact the Open-File Services Section of the USGS Distribution Branch in Denver (P.O. Box 25425, Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225) for help.
Also see (regarding seismological history):
Davison, Charles, The Founders of Seismology (Arno Press, 1978).
Herbert-Gustar, A. L., and P. A. Nott, John Milne: Father of Modern Seismology (Tenterden, U.K: Paul Norbury Publications Ltd., 1980).
Kendrick, T. D., The Lisbon Earthquake (London: Methuen and Company Ltd., 1956).
Sullivan, Walter, Continents in Motion (NY: McGraw-Hill, 1974).
Chapter 10
The New Madrid Quakes of 1811–1812 The definitive work is that of Dr. James L. Penick, Jr., The New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811–1812 (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1976). Also see my previous citation to the book Voices on the River in the notes for Chapter 10. Any serious investigation of that mammoth series of quakes should include a trip to New Madrid and the assistance of the New Madrid Historical Museum. There is a definitive “Essay on Sources” in Penick’s book, beginning on page 154, which should be a starting point as well.
For the technical side of the issue—what will New Madrid’s fault do in the future, and what were the technical signatures of the 1811–12 events—see an equally definitive report by the late Dr. Otto Nuttli entitled “The Mississippi Valley Earthquakes of 1811 and 1812—Intensities, Ground Motion, and Magnitudes,” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 64, pp. 1189–1207, February 1973—including a microfiche of early written reports. And the USGS Professional Paper 1236 edited by F. A. McKeown and L. C. Parker entitled “Investigations of the New Madrid, Missouri, Earthquake Region” (Government Printing Office, 1982) is a must.
Also see Fuller, Myron, The New Madrid Earthquake (Government Printing Office, 1912).
Chapter 11
Dr. George Plafker and His Work Dr. Plafker’s contributions to the previously cited USGS and the National Academy of Sciences series on the Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 were beyond invaluable, but his contributions to geophysics came from a series of seminal papers that are required reading for anyone interested in the evolution of the plate tectonics theory. First of all, the article in The New York Times that seemed to pit Plafker and Dr. Frank Press against each other with opposing theories can be found in any library that has the last twenty-five years of The New York Times on microfilm. Look for the article “Science: The Earth’s Upheavals” by Walter Sullivan, Section E, p. 6, Sunday, July 11, 1965. The pivotal paper that sparked it all was printed in Science, Vol. 148, No. 3678, pp. 1675–1687, June 25, 1965, and entitled “Tectonic Deformation Associated with the 1964 Alaska Earthquake” (by George Plafker).
His research on the Chilean earthquake of 1960 and what it meant to the emerging model of plate tectonics was published in the Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, Vol. 81, pp. 1001–1030 (plus 14 figures), April 1970, entitled “Mechanism of the Chilean Earthquakes of May 21 and 22, 1960.”
And a more energetic and confident presentation of the growing conclusions regarding the veracity of the plate tectonic model as demonstrated by the Chilean and Alaskan quakes was entitled “Alaskan Earthquake of 1964 and Chilean Earthquake of 1960: Implications for Arc Tectonics” (by George Plafker), Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 77, No. 5, February 10, 1972.
Chapter 12
Dr. Robert Wallace and His Research Dr. Wallace’s name can be found on a myriad of professional papers, and I will not attempt to reproduce a comprehensive list here. But he is the contemporary midwife to (if not father of) the new science of paleoseismology, and those interested in looking over the shoulder of his research should start with a February 1985 article in Scientific American (Vol. 252, No. 2, pp. 35–44) entitled “Predicting the Next Great Earthquake in California,” by Robert L. Wesson and Robert E. Wallace. In addition, his fascinating paleoseismological detective work on the great quake in China in 1739 should be studied as published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 76, No. 5, pp. 1253–1287, October 1986, entitled “Fault Scarps Related to the 1739 Earthquake and Seismicity of the Yinchuan Graben, Ningxia Huizu Zizhiqu, China,” by Yuhua, Shunmin, Wallace, Bucknam, and Hanks.
Dr. Wallace’s work on earthquake prediction, and his steady support and guidance of other scientists studying the subject, have helped to push the process along at a steady speed. The result of his participation on the Steinbrugge panel of 1970 resulted in his co-authorship of the formal report I cited in the text of this chapter as a breakthrough in diplomacy: “Report of the Task Force on Earthquake Hazard Reduction, Executive Office of the President, Office of Science and Technology” (Government Printing Office, September, 1970). And, of course, there is the report on G. K. Gilbert’s research cited in the notes to this chapter.
Chapter 13
The San Fernando Quake of 1971 First you should reread my notes to this chapter for several of the applicable articles and papers. The February 22, 1971, issues of Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report both contain useful roundups of the available information at that time. So too do the series of articles following the February 9 quake in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, both widely available on microfilm.
Incredible pictures of the Lower Van Norman Dam (in addition to the one in the picture section of this book) may be found at the USGS Photo Library in Denver, Colorado. Mere inches and luck saved the lives of perhaps ten thousand people that morning: Recall that the reservoir was only half full, and after the quake less than three feet of dirt shoulder remained above the waterline on the eastern side. There are other old such hy
draulically filled dams of equal fragility in our country today, waiting—just waiting—for a major seismic jolt to fragment their structures and release their contents on the trusting communities often built below.
Chapters 14–15
Dr. Kerry Sieh In order to properly follow Dr. Sieh’s pivotal work, obtaining and reading the following is a minimum requirement:
Sieh, Kerry E., “Prehistoric Large Earthquakes Produced by Slip on the San Andreas Fault at Pallett Creek, California,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 83, No. B8, August 10, 1978.
Sieh, Kerry E., and Richard H. Jahns, “Holocene Activity of the San Andreas Fault at Wallace Creek, California,” Geological Society of America Bulletin, Vol. 95, pp. 883–896, 11 figures, 3 tables, August 1984.
Sieh, Kerry E., “Lateral Offsets and Revised Dates of Large Prehistoric Earthquakes at Pallett Creek, Southern California,” Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 89, No. B9, September 10, 1984.
Weldon, Ray J., and Kerry E. Sieh, “Holocene Rate of Slip and Tentative Recurrence Interval for Large Earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault, Cajon Pass, Southern California,” Geological Society of America Bulletin, Vol. 96, pp. 793–812, June 1985. (This one is especially important to anyone following Dr. Mark Zoback’s project at Cajon Pass.)
In addition, Kerry Sieh’s work on the 1857 great quake (called the Ft. Tejon quake because of the epicenter’s location near Ft. Tejon) can be found in the following:
Sieh, Kerry E., “Central California Foreshocks of the Great 1857 Earthquake,” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 68, No. 6, pp. 1731–1749, December 1978.
Agnew, Duncan Carr, and Kerry E. Sieh, “A Documentary Study of the Felt Effects of the Great California Earthquake of 1857,” Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Vol. 68, No. 6, pp. 1717–1729, December 1978 (same issue as previous citation).
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