Hi All. Some forty odd years ago while living in Japan I was woke up one morning by a quake. The quake wasn’t a very large one, but just large enough that it woke me up. I was and still terrified of quakes. I learned at an early age, that to overcome your fear of something you learn about it. That day I promised my self to learn all I could about earthquakes. What cause’s them, where are they likely to occur, how large can they be etc. I’m still learning and I’m still terrified of quakes, but now I don’t try to run though the door. At least now I take enough time to open it. I now know to stay put and to keep breathing. I haven’t determined which is harder to do. To stay put, or breathe?

In 1974 the “Termite” (my daughter) brought home some geology homework. That was when I first learned about the plates. I didn’t even know there such things as places at that the Earth’s surface was comprised of plates and it was along the boundries of these plates that most of the earthquakes occurred.

We lived accros the street from the library so I figured that would be the best place to look. Wrong. They didn’t have one single book that covered plates. They took my name and telephone number and told me they would see if they could find what I was looking for. Within a couple of days they had found a book for me. I read that book from cover to cover and I was completely and totally overwhelmed with what I learned. I now knew what the cause of most quakes was, but what I didn’t learn was what caused the plates to move, and what got them moving in the first place. It took years for me to get the answers to those questions, but the answers are only theory, because they still don’t really know the cause.

It was about this time that I became interested in earthquake prediction. My Better Half would cut out Jim’s predictions every week and place them on the refrigarator so they would be in a handy place for us to see them. I remember thinking at the time that the biggest thing Jim’s prediction lacked was the location. I felt that in order for it to be useful you had to be almost exact in regards to location. That was when I embarded on my quest to learn what it would take to make a useful prediction. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since I started my quest of earthquake prediction. Saddly I must admit I’m really no close now then I was 30 years.

About 4 years ago I started seeing things that got me to thinking that short term prediction may be a waste of time, energy and money. I watched a Japanese documentary on earthquake prediction and you can hear the doubts that they will ever be able to get it accurate enough to be able to use. There are some indications that they are backing away from prediction and more into looking at ways of building for the largest quake that can be expected to occur at any one location. They talked about the logistics of evacuating a area the size of Tokyo and it appears to be an almost impossible task. They talked about missing the quake by a couple of days as being something they could live with, but if they miss the location by a 100 miles the quake could be worse then had they not evacuated the area. The quake could center in the area where the people evacuated to thereby put a greater strain on the support services in that area.

The other thing they talked about was the infrastructure. If it's destroyed by the quake, how long would it take to rebuild it? How many times could they rebuild it before it bankrupted them? While they might be able to move most of the people out of harms way they can't move the buildings. Short period prediction might be a nice thing on the surface, but how cost affective is it? That is something they are looking at now. For the most part they know where they can expect a major quake to occur, but the money could be better spent on looking at ways to make the buildings more earthquake resistant. What can they do to make sure their water systems can withstand a large quake? What about transportation, communications, electrical, gas and what have you?

A couple of years ago I took a walking tour through San Francisco in the area of the greatest damage by the 1906 quake. The guide made a point of showing us some buildings that stood up to the quake. They are long buildings. They were twice as long as they were wide. They came through the quake with flying colors. There were also some buildings that were constructed in the same fashion, but they were leveled. They were in the same area as those that withstood the quake. The big difference between those buildings and those that were knocked flat was they were built on a north/south direction, where as the ones that were flattened were built in a east/west direction. Something as simple as aligning the building in the correct direction to the fault would be a good way to build.

The more I look at it, the more I study it, the more I believe that spending the money in research looking for ways to make buildings and the infrastructure more quake resistant is the better way to go. It’s not the quake it self that injure and kill people. It’s the collapsing of buildings, bridges, overpasses and what have you that injure and kill people. Take Care…Don in creepy town