On Aug 24, 2011, at 9:44 20AM, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote: > On Aug 24, 2011, at 8:55 AM, JC Dill wrote: >> On 23/08/11 3:13 PM, William Herrin wrote: >>> A. Our structures aren't built to seismic zone standards. Our >>> construction workers aren't familiar with*how* to build to seismic >>> zone standards. We don't secure equipment inside our buildings to >>> seismic zone standards. >> >> They should be. >> They should be. >> You should. >> >> Earthquakes can happen anywhere. There's no excuse to fail to build/secure >> to earthquake standards. > > Tornados can happen anywhere, there's no excuse to fail to build/secure for > tornados. > > [Etc.] > > Things that cost money are not done unless the probability of the danger is > higher than vanishingly small. This temblor - at 5.8 with no injuries or > fatalities - was the largest earthquake on the entire east coast in 67 years, > and the largest in VA in well over a century. Think of the _trillions_ of > dollars which could have been put into healthcare, public safety, hell, > better networking equipment :) we could have used instead of making all > buildings on the east coast earthquake safe. > It's more complex than that: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/east-coast-earthquakes/ And eastern cities can experience quakes of a magnitude noteworthy even on the West Coast -- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charleston,_South_Carolina#Postbellum_era_.281865.E2.80.931945.29
--Steve Bellovin, https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb