Hi Don & Beth,

Honestly, I think if there were a 7 pointer over here I don't think I'd be woo-hooing but running around the neighborhood trying to see who I could help.

There are so few people who live in this area that know of the fault, let alone where it is. At elevations between 500 ft and 3,000 ft, all they know is Sonoma Mountain is in there someplace and in the winter it gets snow and they know how to get to the snowline.

Countless times when I've been talking to someone around here and they've asked me where the Rodgers Creek Fault is, I point to the hills and they look so surprised. While that may be interesting its rather frightening because they haven't got a clue about what to do during an earthquake.

What I find interesting is that all of the hills on the entirety of the fault have evidence of some kind of volcanic eruption. You could build thousands of rock fences with the volcanic bombs, but no one seems to know where they came from. I have a suspicion they are from Mt. Knocti or possibly Mt. St. Helena over in Lake County, but right in this area, probably a few miles from my home is Mt. Taylor which used to be an oozing volcano. I often wonder how shaking intensities are affected with such a mix of alluvial soils, igneous rock and volcanic matter. Probably like a quake coctail.

One thing is certain, if we ever have that 7.0 here we will but cut off for a long time from routine services as probably a hundred overpasses will collapse, thousands of homes will be destroyed and loss of life could be on the high side. The 1906 quake leveled parts of Santa Rosa and though rebuilding was better than before, many homes are not retrofitted. Santa Rosa has 100,000 residents and I would imagine maybe only 10% or less have prepared for a quake.

Petra