<p>I know this might sound a bit silly...I would love to study in California, but I am afraid of the earthquakes! Especially the possible Big quake that is expected to happen soon. Is it safe there anymore?</p>
<p>There is always a chance of a big one, but it is ridiculous to be afraid. California is much safer than hurricane and tornado territory.</p>
<p>well, you can prepare for hurricanes in advance, and tornadoes cause damage in relatively small areas. Huge earthquakes can surprise you anytime and you can do nothing!</p>
<p>Don't worry about it. The chances that "the Big One" will happen right under you are slim. Also, the building codes in CA are a lot stricter, so the occasional 4.0 or 5.0 earthquake doesn't really cause mass panic or destruction.</p>
<p>If you really want to study in California, look at schools away from the earthquake faults, like UC Davis and any CSU in the central valley.</p>
<p>or, if you REALLY believe in the Big One, apply to UNLV, which will become beach front property after Calif slides into the Pacific. (sorry, couldn't resist).</p>
<p>My wife is a midwesterner by birth -- was concerned when we had the first 5+ eq hit, but now thinks nothing of a little rattle every so often. She even admits she'd rather be in Calif than the upper midwest.</p>
<p>California's earthquakes are overrated. I was posting on College Confidential during the entire 5.4 SoCal earthquake this spring... :rolleyes:</p>
<p>No worry, Earthquake research center (Caltech) is there to inform you first :)</p>
<p>My dad keeps mentioning this but i really could care less. Its better than seasonal snowstorms that last 4 months. It doesn't seem too bad and if all the people in CA can handle it, I'm not worried.</p>
<p>madeline20 - It is great that you are listening to your inner voice and concerns such as the types of natural disasters prone to particular parts of the country (earthquakes in California and the West Coast in general, hurricanes on the Gulf and East coasts, tornadoes in the mddle of the country, etc.) The same cautionary flags in oneself now also can occur with man-made disasters such as the possibility of terrorist events in certain locales. </p>
<p>As usual, now it's useful to gain some more knowledge (which prompted your question here) about those nagging concerns (in this case earthquakes in California) and then make reasonable choices for yourself based on that knowledge. I recommend that you first google "earthquake forecast research California" or a similar phrase as a starting point and then educate yourself. A magnitude 7 earthquake in a major metropolitan area such as L.A., Seattle, San Francisco, or San Diego would cause incredible damage and possibly take thousands of lives, so it is by no means a trivial matter. As to if/when such a catastrophe may happen - who knows? (maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe a hundred years from now). But the information you generate for yourself on the potential "big one" earthquake will be yours for the deciding of your own future. (I faced a similar choice - keep on reading.)</p>
<p>Where you go to college often can then result in where you start out and build your adult life, so checking out various pros and cons of a West Coast life is very worthwhile. (By the way, I moved to Texas as a single young adult exactly because of the concerns you raised in your post about California and earthquakes, and what I expected when I came to Texax eventually happened. I met and married a Texas gal and raised a family here.) Another friend - who I have since lost touch with - moved to California at the same time and built his life there.</p>
<p>The advice to you in a prior post is very good to also consider colleges close to the West Coast, but not directly on it such as colleges in the Central Valley of California. Let me toss in Arizona colleges (such as Arizona State University in Phoenix) or colleges in the interior of Washington state (such as Whitman College) as other possibilities.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>A magnitude 7 earthquake in a major metropolitan area such as L.A., Seattle, San Francisco, or San Diego would cause incredible damage and possibly take thousands of lives, so it is by no means a trivial matter<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>It's this kind of alarmist talk that makes people needlessly afraid to visit California. To begin with, the scenario you paint has already happened in modern times and the toll was no where near "thousands". In 1989 the Bay Area was struck by the 7.1 Loma Prieta quake that did considerable damage, but the final death toll was 63. Similarly, in 1994 LA got hit with a 6.7 and the deaths were 57. Compare these death tolls that of say Hurricane Katrina. Modern construction has really helped limit the death and damage from earthquakes. We've come a long way since 1906.</p>
<p>Moreover, it is unlikely that San Diego will ever get hit with any quake that big, because the big San Andreas Fault lies more than 70 miles to the east. And none of the known local faults are big enough to cause a 7.0 quake.</p>
<p>BTW, the biggest quake to ever hit the US was not in California. A quake estimated to be greater than 8.0 hit New Madrid, Missouri in Dec. of 1811. I guess they must be about due for the next big one. So if quakes are a problem, you better stay out of a large piece of the midwest as well.</p>
<p>To the OP, if you want to go to college in California, don't let the threat of quakes stop you. You'll probably feel the ground tremble a little bit once or twice in your four years here. And if the big one does happen to hit, your chances of coming through it okay are very, very good.</p>
<p>well, my non-californian friends seem to be able to feel the minor earthquakes, but i can never feel it (unless it's medium strength), probably because i've been so used to it here already. seriously, sometimes you can't even feel if there's an earthquake going on if the earthquake is minor. </p>
<p>as for all who are advising to study in schools in the central valley... i read in the LA Times that if the "big one" hits, it could damage a lot of the infrastructure that is protecting the central valley right now, and the central valley could end up being flooded (but maybe not to the extent new orleans was from hurricane katrina). </p>
<p>as for thousands of people dying... it's a possibility, but that would require certain conditions: the "big one" would have to hit during the normal working hours of a non-holiday weekday, and the epicenter would have to be near downtown LA or downtown SF. damage is reduced significantly if one of those factors are missing (i.e. hit downtown LA during night time, or hit suburban LA during the day), and the resulting factor would be something moderately greater than the northridge earthquake of 1994.</p>
<p>kfc4u and coureur - You are providing exactly the kinds of knowledgeable information useful to madeline20 and others that persons living in the area can provide. My overall advice was for her to keep looking and gaining these perspectives beyond just the one source of the CC board. My reference to the potential of a "big one" was not to be "alarmist" but to emphasize that the overall topic of earthquakes and California is not a trivial one to be blown off. </p>
<p>I agree with Coureur's remarks that where the epicenter of a major quake (such as a 7.0 magnitude) occurs has everything to do with with the potential casualty count, so "thousands dying" may indeed be an unlikely occurence.</p>
<p>The epicenter of the 7.0 Loma Prieta earthquake not being in an urban area (see quote from googled article below) supports Coureur's remarks about location, time of day, and lower casualties. If the 7.0 epicenter had been in an urban setting such as San Francisco, a different story.</p>
<p>Again, my overall points were for her to find out more and then make one's decisions rather than blow off a legitimate concern. As I mentioned in the first post, I had a friend who moved to California when I moved to Texas and this proved to be the right move for him (so nothing "alarmist").</p>
<p>Key Geotechnical Aspects of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake
Jonathan Stewart
Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
UCLA </p>
<p>Introduction
The Loma Prieta Earthquake of October 17, 1989 occurred at 5:05 p.m. (local time) when a segment of the San Andreas fault in the mountains northeast of Santa Cruz, California ruptured over a length of approximately 28 miles (45 km). The Seismographic Station at the University of California, Berkeley determined the earthquake to have a local magnitude of ML = 7.0. The location of the fault rupture zone and the earthquake epicenter are shown in Fig. 1.</p>
<p>While damage from the Loma Prieta Earthquake was severe in counties near the epicenter, more than 80 percent of the fatalities (50 out of 62 deaths) and 70 percent of the $5.9 billion in monetary losses occurred in San Francisco and Alameda Counties, approximately 50 miles (80 km) from the epicenter. Indeed, some of the most vivid and widely publicized examples of damage were the collapsed section of the Interstate 880 Cypress Street Viaduct in Oakland, the partial collapse of a section of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, and the structural failures and fires in the Marina District of San Francisco. (Fig. 2)</p>
<p>Much of the damage to result from the Loma Prieta Earthquake, especially in the central San Francisco Bay area, occurred at sites underlain by thick deposits of soft clayey soils. The concentration of damage in a few distinct areas having these soil conditions resulted from amplification of relatively moderate levels of "bedrock" shaking to much stronger levels of ground surface shaking. This ground motion amplification at "soft" soil sites was the most significant geotechnical aspect of the Loma Prieta Earthquake. Another significant geotechnical feature was a form of ground failure known as soil liquefaction. Liquefaction of loose, saturated cohesionless soils in a number of coastal areas near the Monterey and San Francisco Bays caused extensive damage to waterfront facilities, structures, and buried pipelines.</p>
<p>Oops - switch coureur and kfc4u's points (i.e. kfc4u should be coureur and the opposite) in my last post and I think I finally have "who said what" correct. Sorry about that.</p>
<p>I came to California for college, and ended up putting down roots and staying. My wife doesn't want to live anywhere else; my children are developing their own lives. I'm a lawyer; moving to nearly any other state would mean taking the bar exam again, which is not an appealing mid-career prospect. In any event, my professional expertise is in providing legal advise in an industry that's really centered in California.</p>
<p>Do earthquakes scare me? You bet they do. I lived through the Loma Prieta quake, and will never forget what it's like to run across the room to steady a book case that was ready to fall over. (My furniture is now anchored to the walls in my house; I won't make that mistake again.) Most of my net worth is tied up in equity in our house, located a few miles from the Hayward fault. The construction of the house, and the characteristics of the land it's situated on, are such that it's not likely to incur significant structural damage in the event of a major quake, but property values in the Bay Area fell by 20% after 1989.</p>
<p>To the OP: earthquakes are something to think about, just as I would think about hurricanes before moving to the Gulf coast. Going to an area for college often leads to permanent relocation.</p>
<p>We moved to California about a month after Loma Prieta (hey! All that pressure gone - best odds in years!) and after sixteen+ years, I've never felt anything stronger than a 5 or so. They're so ridiculously overhyped by everybody else, and when you consider the fact that living close enough to a faultline in CA means you don't have to deal with tornados, hurricanes, blizzards, or even an uncomfortable abundance of rain, I'd say it's worth it. :) Just go stand in a field! Good of you to research, but don't let it stop you from applying here.</p>
<p>I've lived in California my whole life.
Yeah, there is a risk of earthquakes. But it's usually pretty rare, I mean, every now and then there might be a report of a tiny one that no one felt...but really, it's safe.
Of course, anything could happen. But it's not like there are earthquakes here all the time.</p>
<p>What do we think would be the theoretically safest city to live in? The Plains have tornadoes, the East Coast and South have hurricanes, the upper East Coast/New England/Upper Midwest have horrible snow storms, and the West Coast has earthquakes not to mention California sliding into the Pacific. It seems to me like Florida is the least safe place to buy a home - what do you think is the safest?</p>
<p>Well, you could build on a solid piece of granite somewhere that hasn't seen a tornado, earthquake, hurricane or blizzard in 100 years and then fall asleep with a candle burning and burn your house down. I'd say the safest place would be the places where people use common sense and take precautions and make preparations appropriate to the potential hazards.</p>
<p>Actually, as a long time resident of California married to a California native, I worry MUCH more about wild fires than I do about earthquakes. Just keep in mind that earthquakes can - and do - happen anywhere. In fact, I have read research that there are major fault lines just waiting to rupture in Missouri/Kansas as well as the PAcific Northwest. And, even New York has had some earthquakes over the years. Sure, weigh possibility factors like earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, snow storms, terrorist attacks, and every other possibility --- but, in the end, don't let any of them stop you from living your life the way you want.</p>