Hi Pat. The main difference is that the people can see the hurricanes. They understand how they work. They are not surprised. That is the big difference between the forecasting of quakes and hurricanes. A lot of people don’t understand earthquakes. All they know is that they can’t see them. They can’t see where or when it will strike, or how large it will be. All they know is that a large quake has the potential of bringing down large buildings, bridges, knocking trains off the tracks. They can see in their minds eye a building collapsing on them crushing them to death, or being trapped and no way out before a fire reaches them. There will be some who will ignore the quake forecast and there will be those who will take them serious. What if you are emergency response person? Are you going to tell the boss your not coming to work today because the building you work out of is not quake resistant? What would you do if you were the boss and all of your people called and said they won’t be in?
If they are not prepared for a large quake before the forecast there is a very good chance that they will not be able to prepare themselves. The stores will be sold out of the material needed long before all of them have a chance to buy the material. I would be willing to bet that if you took a poll of 100 people and ask them if they are prepared for a catastrophic quake you will find that maybe only 10% are prepared.
When the USGS made their prediction about Mammoth Lakes in 1980 they took a lot of heat. There was talk about suing them for the lost of the tourist trade. USGS is not going to make that mistake again if they can help it. It’s easy for you and I to make our predictions because we are not walking in their shoes. We don’t have to take the heat from the upper echelon if we are wrong.
Don’t take me wrong. I’m all for the forecasting of quakes. Better yet if the people are prepared for a catastrophic quake we don’t need a forecasting system. We can’t make buildings, bridges, etc. earthquake proof, but we can make them earthquake resistant. The Kobe, Japan quake in 1995 showed that. Most of the larger buildings that suffered very little damage where those that were built between 1946 and 1970. They started cutting corners because of the cost of materials. They started leaving more open spaces in the buildings. Most of the buildings that collapsed, collapsed at those open spaces. Most of the sections of the Kansai freeway that collapsed had support wrappings every 30cm. Most of the section that stayed up had the support wrappings every 10cm. Most of the people who died in the Kobe quake did so from fire, not from the quake itself.
I could go on, but I’m afraid Canie is going to strangle me for taking up too much bandwidth. Take Care…Don in creepy town.