The Big Two (M7.9)
The first 20 minutes: According to statistics found online, an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 will kill “1,800 people at night or over 3,400 people during the day, and seriously injury about 8,000 people at night or over 12,500 people during the day,” (1, 31-32). 10,000 commercial buildings will experience structural damage, “or about 15% of all commercial buildings in the study region, and includes about 40% of all commercial buildings in San Francisco and San Mateo counties,” (1, 30). About 600,000 will be displaced from their homes, requiring alternate shelter either from the public or among friends and family, (1, 30). Sewer lines will be disrupted as well the primary waterways that deliver water to the city, (2). There is also the significant chance that fire will become a dangerous issue within just a few minutes of the initial quake, (1, 24). Loss of water flow to the city will hamper firefighting efforts. Loss of electricity will happen, automobile infrastructure will shift, bridges will break, phone lines and cell phone towers will experience damage, and some radio stations may cease to broadcast, (3). The Golden Gate Bridge may or may not have been retrofitted to withstand great seismic activity as the project to thus retrofit it is due to be complete in 2012, but knowing government construction time frames (as well as extensive cost cutting measures) it’ll be late (and poorly done), resulting in a massive collapse of the entire bridge within minutes.
24 hours after earthquake: Stores will be unstaffed and won’t have electricity. Some foods will begin to spoil if the earthquake happens during warm months. Freezers have failed. Medicine requiring refrigeration may not be available. Some people won’t have access to their pantries if their homes have been completely destroyed. Those who had a 72 hour kit available and were able to flee with it will have food, water, and warmth. Hospitals and any impromptu infirmaries that happen to spring up will be overwhelmed with those seeking help. The death toll, either from untreated injuries or due to critical damage with delayed mortality, will rise. Those who are trapped in collapsed buildings will need water and medicine very soon. Rubble will continue to shift as environmental temperature fluctuates, wind and rain occur, and any aftershocks perpetuate. Gas lines will need to be secured to minimize fire hazards. Reporters are on the scene already, giving you live coverage of the devastation as it occurs.
72 hours after earthquake: The National Guard has been mobilized and may be arriving. Fires have spread. Firefighters and law enforcement from other states may have arrived to help restore order in the city itself and surrounding counties. Efforts to evacuate are hampered by destroyed roads and airports. Outbound traffic will be severely strangled. People will run out of gas while still miles from their destinations or even other gas stations. Fuel may run out entirely due to demand and tankers’ inability to restock gas stations. Communication is still hampered by power outages and downed cell towers. Some radio stations may have generators to help make emergency broadcasts. Residents are in serious need of water and food, and some are in serious need of shelter. Sanitation is becoming more of a problem as human waste and trash are not collected and removed from the city. Lost pets may be loose and scavenging. Some people may be resorting to raiding grocery stores and pharmacies for need or profit. There are language barriers as rescuers seek to locate or treat the missing and injured.
One week after earthquake: Some sort of benefit concert featuring a number of celebrities and music stars has been arranged. Outrage over how this emergency has been handled is all over the news, along with scathing analysis of how much of the damage could have been prevented. Fires are either out or under control and one half of the homeless have been put up in tents or farmed out to neighboring counties. Relief is finally starting to pour in at a pace that was needed days before. Blame is in the preliminary rounds of discussion and everyone is attempting to use the situation to their advantage. There is a heavy Asian population in San Francisco, so allusions to the Japanese-American internment camps following the bombing of Pearl Harbor are flying across the media airwaves. Hopefully this emergency doesn’t occur during a presidential election year. Funds are allocated to send emergency aid to the area and California goes into receivership, (4). Many will rally around California but will quietly move away to Colorado, throwing the Colorado housing market and public schools into disarray. Several companies with headquarters in San Francisco have a stiff upper lip in the media, but prices go up on such products as Dolby, Gap, Gymboree, Del Monte, and Williams-Sonoma, Inc. Servers have been disrupted at Wikimedia, Blogspot, Craigslist, and Flikr, further disrupting national communication. Many fruit crops are declared to be in danger causing the price of artichokes, strawberries, lettuce, celery and peppers to go up dramatically and people horde seed packets and canned goods (where available) of the same.
One month after earthquake: Hard data begin to be available concerning casualties and damage assessments. Outrage still circulates concerning the treatment of various evacuees, with declarations of“it’s Katrina all over again” in more than one media outlet. By now several people in political positions have been replaced by other people with similar levels of competence but with nicer teeth and fresher faces so the common people feel that the movers and shakers are finally placing blame on the appropriate heads. A national holiday is proposed but shouted off the table since it wasn’t an act of war that caused the devastation. Media are finally catching on to the damage in surrounding areas, including the Point Reyes National Seashore, the toppling of flora in Mt Diablo State Park, and Henry W. Coe State Park (home of TarantulaFest). Many people question whether San Francisco should be rebuilt, to which lobbyists for those companies headquartered there respond with vehement schmoozing. Candlelight rallies take place where half of the candlelight vigilees wear tie-dye rainbow t-shirts, eat dim sum and sing Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay to support the city of the now fallen Golden Gate Bridge. The country has recovered from its shock enough to finally start making fun of the tragedy, with Jon Stewart’s Chief Earthquake Correspondent reporting live from the scene that the greatest tragedy of the day was the loss of the Golden Gate Fortune Cookies factory. California begins to relax its immigration rules when it becomes desperate for repairs to be stepped up so that tourists keep coming to spend their money in a state that was ailing even before the natural disaster struck. Lax immigration regulation results in a sharp uptick in crime and drugs in the state, straining law enforcement resources. It also creates a greater strain on state aid programs like WIC and some state health benefits, sapping away the money that the state was trying to bring in with cheap labor.
6 months after the earthquake: Long term funds for reconstruction have been stymied in the senate since the Republicans are back in power and they don’t want to fund a city known for its socially liberal reputation. They try to attach relief funds to a bill that defines marriage as between a man and a woman. Further argument comes up when they realize that with the large Mormon population in the state that they also want the bill to declare marriage to be between one man and one woman, (5). Damage has been assessed in the many delicate aspects of California ecology. Biologists lament the demise of an entire species of shrimp, the sickening of two species of seaweed, and the disruption of both sealion and monarch butterfly reproduction and migration patterns. All other potential for major disasters is ignored by the public because they live in a culture of instant gratification and little thought for the past or future. Disasters have happened, the government came to rescue them even though they didn’t prepare emergency supplies, and they now have an additional form of entertainment: recreational outrage. The tv movie starring Dennis Quaid and the Olsen twins entitled The Day the Iron Horse was Put Down (with distinct animal rights and environmental awareness agendas) has been shown twice during primetime and put out on dvd, along with a documentary by Michael Moore entitled They Gelded the Iron Horse: Why FEMA and Obama Allowed a Golden Symbol to Fall. The government has made, more aggressively publicized, or renamed a committee to predict future disasters and prepare for them. They’ll call it CARMA: Collectively Addressing Resoundingly Maleficent Ado (since it’ll be name by a hippy liberal who is native to San Francisco). CARMA is intended to work closely with FEMA. They end up having a public squabble on CNN after CARMA refuses to divulge its prognostications, whereupon FEMA refuses to respond to any disaster which CARMA doesn’t publicly predict.
1 year later: National media ask the country to observe a moment of silence beginning the minute when the earthquake first struck the year previous. The victims of the tragedy are still largely displaced and some of them are still very angry at insurance companies or relief efforts that they felt were insufficient. A new ribbon has emerged in memory of The Big Two (otherwise known as The Second Big One): black and gold striped lengthwise. This ribbon appears on cars and windows in an effort to renew anxious awareness of a tragedy which happened very recently in the context of human history, but so long ago in the age of text messages and speed dating.
2 – A video found here: http://www.1906eqconf.org/
5 – Full disclosure: I’m LDS (aka, Mormon).
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1 comment:
I like the plugs for emergency preparedness!
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