[Vision2020] Forty-five years ago yesterday (February 9, 1971)

[Janesta]

As if it was a comical dream, the water in my large aquarium sloshed over
the rim, rocking on the high dresser it sat on.. Mom's voice could be heard
squeeling through the rapidly  disappating fog of my mind.. "It's the Big.
One!!! Run for the front door!" Ran we did!! The dim street light revealing
our neighbors, standing in their doorways.. Watching us, watching them.

On Wednesday, February 10, 2016, Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com> wrote:

> I was in the Army, stationed at Merrell Barracks (Nurnberg, Germany).
>
> Meanwhile, back home in the San Fernando Valley . . .
>
> Courtesy of Wikipedia at:
>
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_San_Fernando_earthquake
>
> ---------------------------------
> 1971 San Fernando earthquake
>
> The *1971 San Fernando earthquake* (also known as the *Sylmar earthquake*)
> occurred in the early morning of February 9 in the foothills of the San
> Gabriel Mountains <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gabriel_Mountains> in
> southern California. The unanticipated thrust earthquake had a moment
> magnitude <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale> of 6.5
> or 6.7 (as determined by several independent institutions) and had a
> maximum Mercalli intensity
> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercalli_intensity_scale> of XI (
> *Extreme*). The event was one in a series that affected the Los Angeles
> area in the late 20th century, and a study of the Sierra Madre Fault during
> that time indicated that more substantial thrust earthquakes had occurred
> near the Transverse Ranges
> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transverse_Ranges> in the past. Damage
> was locally severe in the northern San Fernando Valley
> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Fernando_Valley>, and surface
> faulting was extensive to the south of the epicenter in the mountains, as
> well as urban settings along city streets and neighborhoods. Uplift and
> other effects affected private homes and businesses.
>
> The event affected a number of health care facilities in Sylmar
> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylmar,_Los_Angeles>, San Fernando
> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Fernando,_California>, and other
> densely populated areas north of central Los Angeles. The Olive View
> Medical Center
> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olive_View_%E2%80%93_UCLA_Medical_Center> and
> Veterans Hospital both experienced very heavy damage, and buildings
> collapsed at both sites, causing the majority of deaths that occurred. The
> buildings at both facilities were constructed with mixed styles, but
> engineers were unable to thoroughly study the buildings' responses because
> they were not outfitted with instruments for recording strong ground
> motion <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_ground_motion>, and this
> prompted the Veterans Administration
> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Veterans_Affairs> to
> install seismometer <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seismometer>s at its
> high-risk sites. Other sites throughout the Los Angeles area had been
> instrumented as a result of local ordinances, and an extraordinary amount
> of strong motion data was recorded, more so than any other event up until
> that time. The success in this area spurred the initiation of California's
> Strong Motion Instrumentation Program.
>
> Transportation around the Los Angeles area was severely afflicted with
> roadway failures and the partial collapse of several major freeway
> interchanges. The near total failure of the Lower Van Norman Dam resulted
> in the evacuation of tens of thousands of downstream residents, though an
> earlier decision to maintain the water at a lower level may have
> contributed to saving the dam <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dam> from
> being overtopped. Schools were affected, as they had been during a previous
> earthquake in Long Beach
> <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Beach,_California>, but this time
> amended construction styles improved the outcome for the thousands of
> school buildings in the Los Angeles area. Other aspects of the event
> included a methane seep that emanated from the floor of the Pacific Ocean
> near Malibu <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malibu,_California> for
> several days, and hundreds of various types of landslides that were
> documented in the San Gabriel mountains. As had happened following other
> earthquakes in California, legislation related to building codes was once
> again revised, with laws that specifically addressed the construction of
> homes or businesses near known active fault zones.
> --------------------
>
> (video)
> http://youtu.be/fiabD0WBl7w
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .
>
> "Moscow Cares"
> http://www.MoscowCares.com <http://www.moscowcares.com/>
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
>

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