Putting Down Roots in Earthquake Country—Your Handbook for the San Francisco Bay Region U.S. Geological SurveyGeneral Information Product 152005Putting Down Roots in Earthquake Country Your Handbook for the San Francisco Bay Region Developed by:. American Red Cross, Bay Area Chapter.Association of Bay Area Governments.California Earthquake Authority.California Geological Survey.Earthquake Engineering Research Institute.Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.San Francisco Office of Emergency Services and Homeland Security.Southern California Earthquake Center.Structural Engineers Association of Northern California.University of California Berkeley.U.S.
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Department of Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency.U.S. Geological SurveyThe Bay Area Is “Earthquake Country”This handbook provides information about the threat posed by earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay region and explains how you can prepare for, survive, and recover from these inevitable events. If you live or work in the region, you need to know why you should be concerned with earthquakes, what you can expect during and after a quake, and what you need to do beforehand to be safe and reduce damage.as a 32-page PDF file (gip-15.pdf; 5.8 MB).There are many faults in the Bay Area certain to produce large earthquakes in the future.
All Bay Area communities are at risk from the damaging effects of quakes—strong shaking, landsliding, and liquefaction. Scientists estimate that there is more than a 60% chance of a damaging earthquake striking the region in the next 30 years.The disastrous 1989 magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake was not the “Big One”! If you do not prepare for the next big quake in the Bay Area, you and your family could be left without a home, food and water, medical supplies, and financial resources. START PREPARING NOW! Identify potential hazards in your home and begin to fix them. Create a disaster-preparedness plan. Create disaster kits.
Identify your building’s potential weaknesses and begin to fix them. Protect yourself during earthquake shaking. After the quake, check for injuries and damage. When safe, continue to follow your disaster-preparedness plan.In the Great San Francisco earthquake of 1906, thousands of people died, and many homes were destroyed. The hazard remains in the Bay Area, and the homes of today’s families are at risk! (USGS image) Since the Great earthquake of 1906, much has been learned about earthquake hazards and vulnerabilities in the Bay Area:. We know why earthquakes occur here—The Bay Area straddles the boundary where two of the Earth’s largest tectonic plates meet and slowly move past one another.
When boundary faults break and the North American and Pacific Plates lurch past each other, quakes occur. We know large and damaging earthquakes are certain to occur in the future—At least eight faults in the Bay Area are capable of producing earthquakes of magnitude 6.7 or larger. Such quakes can kill and injure many people and cause substantial damage to buildings, roads, bridges, and utilities. We know how to reduce losses in future large earthquakes—Building codes have been improved, some older buildings strengthened, and bond measures approved to upgrade critical facilities. Some Bay Area residents have secured their homes to better withstand shaking, created emergency plans and disaster supply kits, and held home earthquake drills.BUT we have not done enough to be prepared for the next large earthquake:. Fewer than 10% of households have disaster plans—If an earthquake occurred right now, where would you go to be safe?
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If you are at work and your children are at school when the earthquake occurs, how will you get back together?. Fewer than 10% of homeowners have taken steps to retrofit their homes—Is your home bolted to its foundation? If you live in an older building, has it been retrofitted?
Is your water heater strapped? Could unsecured furniture or objects fall and cause injury or damage?. Fewer than 50% of households have disaster supply kits—You will likely be on your own in the hours and days following an earthquake.
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Are you prepared with water, food, first aid supplies, and medications?Why Should I Care?— The Bay Area Is Your Home All Bay Area Residents Live on an Active Plate Boundary Where Earthquakes Are Frequent Events!We know that the San Andreas Fault produces large earthquakes and that many other Bay Area faults are also hazardous. However, even knowing this, it can be difficult to understand how to use this information to make us safer in our daily lives. Should we care only if we live near the San Andreas Fault, or is every place in the Bay Area just as dangerous?This eight-page section describes where earthquakes occur in northern California. It also explains how earthquakes will shake the ground and cause damage in other ways, such as liquefaction and landslides (see pages 8 through 11). Technical terms used throughout this book are explained in the Glossary (see page 31).Don’t be fooled!— Myth number 1“BEACHFRONT PROPERTY”?The idea or myth of California sliding into the Pacific Ocean in an earthquake and creating new beachfront property to the east appeals to those having a bit of fun at the Golden State’s expense. Although part of the State west of the San Andreas Fault system is very slowly moving northward and in millions of years could become an island, earthquakes caused by this horizontal motion of the Earth’s tectonic plates will not make California disappear into the sea, like fabled Atlantis.Plate Motions Load the FaultsDeep beneath California, the Pacific and North American Plates relentlessly grind past one another, straining or “loading” faults in the Earth’s rigid crust above. The horizontal (“strike slip”) movement between these plates along the San Andreas Fault Zone is about 1.7 inches per year (40 mm/yr), about as fast as your fingernails grow.
At this rate, Los Angeles will be west of San Francisco in about 12 million years.JANUARY 1700 M 9In this computer simulation, tsunami waves are radiating outward after a magnitude (M) 9 earthquake that occurred on the Cascadia Subduction Zone offshore of northern California, Oregon, and Washington on January 26, 1700. This view shows the waves 4 hours after the quake. Colors indicate wave heights—red is highest. Along parts of the coast of the Pacific Northwest, 30-foot-high (9 m) waves rushed inland. Within 20 hours the tsunami did damage throughout the Pacific, and it is well documented in written records from Japan. (For more information go to. ”Orphan tsunami” Web address.
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