Earthquake Drill

6.0 too near to a major East Coast city would be pretty bad. NYC and Boston are largely built on fill so there'd be liquefaction, and while modern skyscrapers are built for it the cities are full of older high-rises (also often built on fill) that definitely aren't. The plates are locked together "tighter" so I guess the shaking can be more aggressive and propagate farther because there are less modes to dissipate energy.

Skyscrapers like this are sitting ducks:

Also it will naturally hit at night in winter during a blizzard.

Iron and steel-framed masonry wall buildings did OK in the 1906 earthquake, but they weren't particularly tall, not much more than 10 stories. IDK how later 1920s-30s buildings 30-40 stories tall using the same construction would perform under the same conditions. My intuition is "not great"

The big killer in SF proper in '89 was bricks. The northeast has a lot of brick and stone buildings.

We had mandatory reinforcement of brick buildings here after '89. Now we're forcing upgrades of "soft story" residences, ones with open-structure garages on the ground floor.

Unlike the east coast, where people can afford subsidized flood insurance, few people can afford earthquake insurance here.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

Not so fast. Google global warming causes earthquakes

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

lunatic fringe electronics

Offsite power was restored within a couple hours - the reactor ain't gonna melt down that fast.

Structurally though most iron-framed masonry wall buildings survived along with the people inside, but they weren't very tall (~10 stories.) IDK how taller 1920s-1930s (20-40 stories) buildings of similar construction in the Northeast would fare.

Rigid with no damping I'm afraid that if the quake hit the "right" frequency that's just tall enough to tuning-fork resonate them, and that old iron would buckle under the stresses.

We are familiar with "earthquakes" caused by natural gas exploitation here (no fracking) but they are very minor compared to the quakes at the edges of tectonic plates, the strongest had magnitude 3.1 but most are below 1.5 They cause damage to old buildings that have some historic value, and of course it is a problem for the people living in these buildings, but there is no major damage like in a strong earthquake or hurricane.

Money spent on medical insurance is at least (mostly) spent on the health of other people. That is not wasted, at least not when compared to money spent on features that never served their purpose.

There wasn't a landfall hurricane over Cat 3 hitting the USA for fourteen years - the longest break since 1900. Were humans responsible for that break?

All we are seeing now is weather like I recall from growing up in the

50s and 60s. Hell we had the remnants of hurricane Hazel hit Toronto in 1954! Okay, it was what is now called a superstorm by then, but really, Toronto?

The IPCC also states in their reports that storms have not increased in any measurable way.

Sheesh.

John

Yeah, the Nimitz, I remember.

There's a very old English riddle:

What is it, that the less it is, the more it is dread?

** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * ** * * * *

• a bridge.

Henry Petroski's books on bridges are all good reads.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net

Except for medical and dental checkups, I prefer that all our insurance and seismic upgrade expenses be wasted.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

The deadliest hurricane in US history was the great Galveston storm of September, 1900.

The most intense hurricane in recorded US history is said to be the Labor Day storm of 1935.

Camille was pretty intense, in 1969.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   precision measurement  

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

I binge read Petroski a few (~10) years ago. Bridges, pencils, paper clips.. and then I felt like he was repeating himself. (not surprising.)

Is any of his more recent stuff worth reading?

George H.

His stuff varies in quality, it's true. My faves are Engineers of Dreams, mostly about the NYC bridges, To Engineer is Human, about the role of failure, and The Invention of Useful Things, which is about zippers and paper clips and tea pots.

Invention by Design is terrible.

Those are all over 20 years old.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net

Oh, but your life insurance bill was 'wasted', too, and you volunteered for that. It's the nature of precautions, not a bad business decision.

The money was before taxes, I hope...

My tiger-attack insurance money was definitely wasted. Haven't been mauled by a tiger in years.

Another potentially good read is _Dams and Other Disasters_ by Arthur Morgan

I have that one too. The Army Engineers really are almost beyond parody.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

How does that matter? We *know* humans caused Tokyo and Berlin. It didn't help the residents one whit.