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They Say the Earthquake is Likely to Strike...
75 years ago: Long Beach earthquake | Photo by Jan Bruce, great aunt of LAist Featured Photos contributor victoriabernal
Did ABC's Eli Stone and the U.S. Geological Survey collaborate to put us all on an earthquake watch today? Last night's episode of the San Francisco based "visionary" drama, where Stone's brain aneurism causes him to see the future, was about a giant earthquake hitting the bay city causing the Golden Gate bridge to collapse in the middle.
Then today, reports of the big one hitting Los Angeles are all over the papers:
California faces an almost certain risk of being rocked by a strong earthquake by 2037, scientists said today in the first statewide temblor forecast. New calculations reveal there is a 99.7 percent chance a magnitude 6.7 quake or larger will strike in the next 30 years. The odds of such an event are higher in Southern California than Northern California, 97 percent versus 93 percent. [LA Times]
This Saturday is annual and pretty large Santa Clarita Emergency Expo where you can experience a quake on the "Quake Walk" and free Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) classes with the fire department begin two weeks from now. At the very least, you should have some water stored up. A good practice is ten gallons per person in the household (don't forget some for the pets) switched out every six month and never stored directly on concrete (chemicals leech through the plastic and poison the water).
If you have any earthquake questions, ask below and we'll ask our emergency preparedness expert friends for you and publish it here. In the meantime, check out an interview with LAFD's Captain Stacy Gerlich of the Disaster Preparedness CERT Unit.
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