Hi EQF. One in ten. Lets see now. That would mean that if you made a 100 predictions you were wrong 90 times. With that kind of record I wouldn’t have much confidence in your ability to predict earthquakes. To be truthful I would ignore it.

To me a prediction must be very accurate in three ways. It must be accurate with-in 20 miles, 4 days and at least one whole magnitude if the predicted quake is going to be above M>6.0.

Suppose I say the quake is going to occur on 1 Jan. 2003. Everyone gets prepared for that day. They shut down their business, schools, etc. All of the emergency personnel are called in and are propositioned for the quake. Four days come and go with no quake. Everyone goes back to business as usual. The quake strikes on 10 Jan. 2003. While the quake struck where it was predicted for it didn’t occur when it was predicted for. That means all the money, time and inconvience getting prepared for the quake was wasted. Lets say a million dollars a day in revenue was lost because the businesses shut down. The city lost five hundred thousand a day in overtime paid for the emergency personnel that were never used or needed.

Lets say a major quake is to strike the Hollister area. With a population of just a little over 34,000 it wouldn’t be much of a problem evacuating the town. Lets say most of the people went to San Francisco. That is 94 miles north of Hollister. Now lets say the quake occurs on the day it was predicted for with the magnitude one whole magnitude higher, but instead of striking in Hollister in centers in San Francisco. The people living in Hollister would have been better off staying in Hollister. The area of San Francisco would have been better off if the people living in Hollister would have stayed there. The sudden increase in people would be just an added burden on a system that is already stretched to its maximum.

No way is one in ten ever going to be good enough. You may save the lives of a 1000, but with a record of one in ten it could cost 9000 lives some of which never needed to have been lost had they stayed where they were if evacuation is considered. Take Care…Don in creepy town