Hi Kiddo. What do you mean “if”? Don’t you mean when? You know as well as everyone else who looks at the Rodgers Creek fault that it is just a matter of time when it will pop a large quake. As David Schwartz says. We may have 1 or 2 or 3 years, we don’t have 10, 15, or 30 years. Of course that doesn’t mean the quake will occur on the Rodgers Creek fault, but for right now it is the most likely candidate.

My personal feeling is that the next Bay Area quake will not be predicted. It will blindside us. I know there is a person who says he can predict earthquakes, but the predictions are so broad as to be useless. To pick a center point and then say 140 miles from there means the quake could occur 200 miles from where I live, or right under me. How much good is that going to do?

I know short-term prediction is the goal, but I don’t see that occurring anytime soon. My feeling is that intermediate prediction is the best in the long run. It allows you to get ready for the next quake. You can move the people, but you can’t move the buildings or the infrastructure, but you can build (with some limits) for the strongest quake that is expected to occur in a given area. The sad thing about that is that it’s not being done in most places.

When we have a major quake in California the damage is pretty much limited to the area immediately surrounding the quake. That won’t be the case for a major quake in the New Madrid area, or the Charleston area. They are living with a time bomb and most of them don’t even know it.

To get a good idea as to where the damage will be in the Santa Rosa area when the next major quake strikes all one has to do is look at the damage done by the 1906 quake and the more recent M=5.6 and M=5.7 quakes that occurred there in 1969. It ain’t going to be pretty. Take Care…Don in creepy town

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