[ExI] note from a foaf in japan

spike spike66 at att.net
Sat Mar 19 17:34:17 UTC 2011


From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] 
...

>>This thread seems the typical libertarian response, though.  "Humans are
insufficiently rational for the pure market, let them die off until
rationality improves."

-xx- Damien X-)

>...I see, so he Japanese failed to build homes of sufficient size on
sufficiently high ground to store a few weeks of provisions in earthquake
country?  And had no high-ground tsunami-proof food and supply caches?  And
now they are in a terrible jam?  Multiple choice quiz: 

>Who is at fault?  ... So what do we do? ... spike 

Do let me make it clear, I do not wish to heap insult upon injury to the
victims in Japan.  I am pointing no fingers; I live very close to an active
strike slip fault myself, one which rumbles regularly.  Note on this map,
about in the bottom third, where it shows the town of Fremont.  I live south
of Fremont.  Then look slightly down and to the right of Fremont, you will
see a couple of yellow squares.  That is a piece of strike slip fault.  I
live about 6 miles from that, at the end of a channel cut over the eons by
regular flow of water from before a dam was built:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqscanv/FaultMaps/122-38.html

But it's worse than that.

That fault rumbles on a regular basis, probably average of a couple times a
month, as strike slip faults are known to do, but the worst part is there is
a reservoir right at that fault, as a result of the need for a dependable
water supply to the metropolis below:

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&sugexp=ldymls&xhr=t&q=calaveras+reservoir
&cp=12&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&wrapid=tljp1300554044725022&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sour
ce=univ&sa=X&ei=c-GETaKCBoessAP8q_33AQ&sqi=2&ved=0CDwQsAQ&biw=924&bih=554

If a really big earthquake hits right on the Calaveras Fault, and it damages
or destroys the earthworks, then all that water will come tearing right down
a path that you can calculate or easily estimate if you are hip to one
universal fact: water flows downhill.  The water comes down the ancient
riverbed, which is now a road.  Bicycle riders tend to be really up to speed
on this, for even subtle slopes unnoticed in a Detroit are easily felt if
one is supplying the motive force.  I have ridden a bike up around that
reservoir, and noted what will happen if all that pent up potential energy
is suddenly released in a raging torrent.  It's an easy calculation, and
even easier to see if you merely take a bike up there to that reservoir
south and east of Fremont.

So, if a big earthquake, which we know is coming eventually, takes out that
dam, then the water comes with increasing urgency tearing down the
aptly-named Calaveras Boulevard, which is about half a mile from my house,
ruthlessly taking out everything in its murderous path to the sea.  I might
die in that.  Alcor would never find me out in the bottom of San Francisco
Bay somewhere.  

I know it is a risk, I choose to live here anyway.  That part is my fault.
Most local residents have no idea, for they don't ride bicycles, have never
asked any questions and have never wandered six miles up into the hills;
they are blissfully ignorant of the risk they live under every day of their
lives.  This is their fault.  The fault gives us subtle menacing warnings on
a regular basis.  That's Calaveras' Fault.  

I have a few weeks of provisions, but I know that could all be swept away.
I have a couple days provisions in my truck and keep plenty of gasoline in
its cavernous 33 gallon tank, that truck being the vehicle of choice should
we have time to flee.  Reasoning: from the nature of the shaking, I can tell
if it is the 6 mile-distant Calaveras strike-slip or the more distant Loma
Prieta.  If I know a quake is close and severe, and if I survive the initial
shaking, I estimate I would have about 8 to 12 minutes to flee north on
Interstate 680.  Could I get out in that much time?  Dunno.  Think so.  Hope
so.

If that happens, I hope Japan will remember our helping this time.

spike




 









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