Businessweek on Los Angeles freeways in 7+ earthquake
- From: "HoustonFreeways" <eslotboom@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 13:45:51 -0500
Businessweek's cover story this week is "The Next Big One", covering
scenarios like earthquakes, terrorism, and viruses.
In the section discussing the impact of a 7 magnitude earthquake in Los
Angeles, they make comments that seem to me to be untrue or gross
exaggerations.
"Virtually every one of L.A's freeways would be destroyed, says Lucille M.
Jones, USGS chief scientist for southern California" (p 38)
"All of L.A.'s major highways would crumble, except perhaps Route 101
north." (p 39)
Similar generalized statements are made about San Fransico
"Catastrophic damage would also occur if a giant quake were centered below
the San Francisco Bay area, or further down the coast under Silicon Valley.
The region's network of bridges could tumble down and the port of Oakland
would likely grind to a halt" (p. 39)
So my questions for the SoCal experts is:
Does this sound like untrue generalizations?
Haven't virtually all freeway structures been retrofitted? (The failed
structures in 1994 were un-retrofitted)
Isn't earthquake intensity very localized, meaning that major damage would
be hit and miss but not widespread?
Why do they say that 101 North (Hollywood Freeway) may survive? That's one
of the oldest freeways in L.A.
I expect good quality reporting from Businessweek, so I'm wondering if
anyone can confirm what they say.
http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_38/b3951005.htm
http://businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_38/b3951007.htm
SEPTEMBER 19, 2005
COVER STORY
The Day California Cracks
Budget crises have left the state ill prepared for a big quake
It's power lunch time in Los Angeles. Media moguls are picking through their
Cobb salads at Spago in Beverly Hills. Then the floor begins to move, first
in undulating waves, then in increasingly violent jolts. The airy restaurant
rumbles. Diners scream as the walls of the popular indoor garden room begin
to shake, sending debris everywhere. Outside, along nearby Rodeo Drive, car
alarms start to wail as upscale storefronts explode in a shower of glass and
mannequins. A lonely poodle yaps in search of its master, who lies beneath
an ornate streetlight.
Five miles to the east, downtown L.A.'s high-rises are swaying. As the
54-story Wells Fargo (WFC ) Tower buckles, a torrent of glass showers office
workers along South Grand Avenue. More debris cascades down from the
72-story U.S. Bank (USB ) Tower nearby, just as the elevated 10 Freeway
buckles, sending delivery trucks over its sides and sports cars into each
other. In the distance, fireballs ignite where natural-gas pipelines have
surrendered to the violent shaking.
It sounds like a Hollywood disaster movie, all right. But sooner or later,
when the Big One hits, it will be all too real. As certain as California's
sunny days, palm trees, and celebrity politicians, a massive earthquake is
coming. With more than 300 faults beneath Southern California, and the giant
San Andreas fault running through the state, California is a seismic time
bomb. A magnitude 7 quake has a 62% chance of hitting San Francisco in the
next 30 years, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS); the risk for
L.A. is only slightly less. Such a powerful quake would cause far more
damage than the temblors that shook San Francisco in 1989 or L.A.'s
Northridge neighborhood in 1994. A magnitude 7 quake that struck during a
workday on a recently discovered fault under L.A. would kill 7,000 to 18,000
people, says the USGS. In San Francisco, 5,800 people would die if a temblor
the size of the 1906 quake again savaged the city.
NO WARNING
A shaker of that size, especially in the densely packed areas of L.A. or San
Francisco, could make the horrific sights from Katrina look almost tame.
Because there would be no warning -- no CNN satellite shots like the ones
that plotted Katrina's swirling path toward New Orleans -- there would be no
evacuation. Virtually every one of L.A.'s freeways would be destroyed, says
Lucille M. Jones, USGS chief scientist for Southern California. That could
cut off supplies and needed help. Railways would be destroyed. Natural-gas
lines would rupture. The giant Port of Los Angeles, which itself sits on a
fault, would likely be out of commission, stalling shipments of autos,
electronics, and other cargo that it handles along with adjoining Long
Beach. The estimated hit to the local economy from the port closure: $36
billion. All told, if the quake hit directly below L.A., the damage could
top $250 billion, a USGS study predicted.
Catastrophic damage would also occur if a giant quake were centered below
the San Francisco Bay area, or farther down the coast under Silicon Valley.
The region's network of bridges could tumble down and the port in Oakland
would likely grind to a halt. And, just as L.A.'s entertainment industry
would be laid low by a big quake, Silicon Valley would be dealt a terrible
blow as its surviving creative minds and venture capitalists would be forced
to relocate, creating nothing less than a tech diaspora.
How prepared is the state in the face of such potential destruction? Since
the 1989 Bay Area quake, a 6.9 temblor that left 63 people dead, California
has improved building codes for its schools and hospitals and has beefed up
its Office of Emergency Services response capabilities. But political
wrangling, a state budget crisis, and the federal government's fixation on
putting most of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's money into
anti-terrorism efforts has left California short of where it had hoped to
be. "We're better than we were five or ten years ago," says state Senator
Elaine Alquist, chairman of the Public Safety Committee. "But we're
certainly not prepared."
No doubt, California has learned from the rubble of its past disasters. The
state has spent billions to upgrade most of its overpasses, and has
retrofitted many of its schools. But there hasn't been enough money for
everything. A 2002 inventory by the state architect's office found 2,100 of
the 9,600 schools surveyed are "not guaranteed" to hold up in future
earthquakes. Many hospitals are in financial distress and don't have the
funds to complete needed retrofits, says the California Seismic Safety
Commission. Ballot measures have since been passed to upgrade both schools
and hospitals.
GRASS-ROOTS EFFORTS
Still, precious time has been lost. Plans to make the San Francisco Bay
Bridge, which was partially destroyed in 1989, more earthquake-resistant
have been delayed for eight years over design and funding controversies.
Final plans were agreed to only this past July. The federal government's
policies haven't helped much either. In the most recent Bush Administration
budget, FEMA intends to spend three of every four dollars of its $3.4
billion in grant funds on anti-terrorism efforts, leaving little for
earthquake preparedness. Fearing a New Orleans-like break in California
levees, Senator Dianne Feinstein on Sept. 6 urged Congress to appropriate
the $90 million it authorized to shore up levees along the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta. "A major breach in these levees could imperil hundreds of
thousands of people and endanger most of the state's water supply,"
Feinstein wrote.
The good news is, with the feds scaling back, communities are finding ways
to fend for themselves. The city of Palo Alto is recruiting more volunteers
for its emergency response team. And the state's Office of Emergency
Services has increased from 8 to 13 the number of 60-person emergency teams,
made up largely of local police, fire, and medical personnel. California
companies are also taking the threat seriously. Intel Corp. (INTC ) has
built its $2 billion chip-fabrication plant in Santa Clara on giant rollers
to withstand a large quake.
Of course, all Californians know that no one is ever completely safe in a
big quake. But they're waking up to the fact that they need to do more.
Sacramento is spending an estimated $10 billion in hospital retrofits and
voters have approved $25 billion in new bonds, partially to help make
schools more quake-resistant. Still, the question remains: Will that sum, or
any amount, be enough to truly cushion against the Big One when it finally
hits?
.
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