(08-26-2018 06:18 PM)olliebaba Wrote:  One thing about California there are still good people there. A person can't wish for anyone's death even if that person doesn't have any common sense. As much as I dislike the stupidity of some of their leaders and some of the followers I can't wish them to die. If I wasn't a Christian it would be very easy to wish the whole state to fall into the ocean but I am and God would have been very mad and disappointed to even think that.

Let's hope it doesn't happen.

I don't think anyone who posted in this thread expressed a hope that it would happen. My first question was a serious one. Why live in an area where you know eventually that one will happen. It's not a "what if", but rather a "when?"

You could ask the same about commonly hit hurricane areas but there's ample time to evacuate for hurricanes. There's not for an earthquake. We have many such areas around the globe, like those who live at the base of Vesuvius. It will erupt again. Is it smart to choose to live your existence within the killing zone of major fault lines or volcanoes and is that not a question of natural selection?

On the East coast the cross hairs geologically are on Memphis. They sit on the New Madrid and Pre Cambrian faults with the New Madrid running North and South and having a major Earthquake in intervals of 300 years and the with the Pre Cambrian running East and West beneath the city. It's also an area where liquefaction is likely which further complicates what would be a massive destruction of rigid structures. It's quite possible that a magnitude 7 under Memphis would be as catastrophic as magnitude 9 would be to San Francisco. The liquefaction in San Francisco would be more extensive, but then there's more bedrock which allows the shock waves to travel farther from the epicenter around Memphis.

Yet here everyone acknowledges the dangers of the San Andreas but ignores the ferocity of the New Madrid. In both locations the only viable question is "When?"