Caltech professor Mark Simons shows the plate movement in Friday's earthquake in Japan. (Matt Schrader)
ATVN's Matt Schrader talks to Caltech engineering professor Tom Heaton about aftershocks, magnitude changes and if California could see a similar quake.
Caltech said Saturday it’s working with other agencies to ensure California is alerted in the event of a earthquake along the pacific fault.
“We are working on a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami plan,” said James Goltz, manager of the California Emergency Management Agency’s Earthquake and Tsunami response. “But we’re going to put together much more detailed plans over the next year.”
“We do know the risk, and we’re trying to figure out ways to manage it,” said Lucy Jones of the U.S. Geological Survey.
Jones said a plan for tsunami training is now in the works as well.
“We begun a few months ago to develop our tsunami scenario,” she said. “This earthquake in Japan will help people in the Pacific Northwest.”
Officials say Japan and California share one crucial distinction — they both have large subduction zones and are thus susceptible to tremendously large earthquakes, although generally rare.
“We know we’ll have a great earthquake in California,” said Tom Heaton, a professor of engineering at Caltech. “Our first line of defense is building buildings that are resilient to these type of earthquakes.”
“There may not be that many opportunities to learn the lessons,” he added. “When we look at what’s facing San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle — it’s imperative that we try to anticipate … without having to learn that hard way.”
“If we get a similar sized earthquake in the Pacific Northwest, it will have a major impact on the whole region,” said Heaton. “We now know they both have very large subduction zones on them.”
Jones said the question of a major earthquake hitting the Pacific Northwest is not if, but when.
“That earthquake is inevitable.” she said, adding that it may not occur until “100 200, 500 years from now.”
Heaton said the last major earthquake in the northwest was the Cascadia earthquake of 1700, which caused a massive, deadly tsunami in Japan. That tsunami did not have a large impact on residents in the northwest because that region was virtually uninhabited.
Heaton said that earthquake was “considerably larger than this one.”
But the next one could have much more critical repercussions.
USGS’s Lucy Jones talks about preparing California for a major earthquake like Japan’s. (Matt Schrader)
“Now those areas have larger population,” said Heaton, saying now was the time to look into possible solutions.
“All you have to do is look at this earthquake and see what a serious situation this is,” he said.
Jones said the data captured during the past week’s Japanese earthquake and aftershocks will go a long way in preparing California and the western United States.
“This is the type of earthquake that the pacific northwest will have,” she said. “I would be very studious [and] learn the lessons.”
In past years, California has enacted and tested many earthquake drills, including emergency evacuation drills, siren tests and reverse 911 calling.
“We certainly have worked very hard to promote earthquake and tsunami preparedness in California,” said Goltz.
“Over the last few years, we have been very aware of the potential effects of a very large earthquake,” he said.
Goltz has been serving at the tsunami officer for the past week and said only four counties — Del Norte, Humboldt, San Mateo and Santa Cruz — had reported any damages. But he also said California needs to take further steps to ensure safety in the event of an emergency here.
Jones praised California’s adoption of earthquake training programs.
“We developed the scenario of the big earthquake that became the California shakeout,” said Jones.
Funding, however, could be more of a problem, according to officials.
Earthquake research funding would be cut under President Obama’s 2012 budget by 5 to 10 percent.
“That [percent] is our whole observing infrastructure and developing new technologies,” said Mark Simons, a professor of geophysics at Caltech.
Simons continued, “We already know how to do a lot of stuff … but they’re not necessarily in place, because we don’t have the financial systems to support it.”
Simons recalled NASA’s plans for its own satellite observation of tectonic activity, originally scheduled for 2017 launch, but said funding cuts have impacted that as well.
“At present, the plans for that as well have been scuttled due to financial limitations,” he said.
Still, officials were unsure just how much of an impact these developing technologies have on the lives saved in natural disasters.
“It’s hard to know,” said Simons. “Generally it’s always hard to say how many lives you save.”
