Let's Play Disaster!

The "Big One" unzips California's mighty San Andreas Fault north of the Mexican border, and in less than two minutes, Los Angeles and its sprawling suburbs are shaking like a bowl of jelly. no, it's not the latest piece of shit from Roland Emmerich, it's the work of earthquake scientists who've put together their first scripted disaster!

A team of about 300 scientists, government officers, first responders and relevant industry people worked for more than a year to create a realistic crisis scenario that can be used for preparedness, including a statewide drill planned later this year. Published by the U.S. Geological Survey and California Geological Survey, it is to be released tomorrow before congress.

The jolt from their 7.8-magnitude temblor lasts for three minutes — 15 times longer than the disastrous 1994 Northridge quake. Water and sewer pipes crack. Power fails. Part of major highways break. Some high-rise steel frame buildings and older concrete and brick structures collapse. Hospitals are swamped with 50,000 injured as all of Southern California reels from a blow on par with the Sept. 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina: $200 billion in damage to the economy, and 1,800 dead. Only about 700 of those people are victims of building collapses. Many others are lost to the 1,600 fires burning across the region — too many for firefighters to tackle at once.

The figures are based on the assumption that the state takes no continued action to retrofit flimsy buildings or update emergency plans. Projected losses are far less than the magnitude-7.9 killer that caused more than 40,000 deaths last week in western China, in part because California has stricter building code enforcement and retrofit programs. Their scenario is focused on the San Andreas Fault, the 800-mile boundary where the Pacific and North American plates grind against each other. The fault is the source of some of the largest earthquakes in state history, including the monstrous magnitude-7.8 quake that reduced San Francisco to ashes and killed 3,000 people in 1906.

Scientists chose the parameters of the fictional temblor such as its size and length of rupture and ran computer models to simulate ground movement. Engineers calculated the effects of shaking on freeways, buildings, pipelines and other infrastructure. Risk analysts used the data to estimate casualties and damages.

The story
The San Andreas Fault suddenly rumbles to life on Nov. 13, 2008, just after morning rush hour. The quake begins north of the U.S.-Mexican border near the Salton Sea and the fault ruptures for about 200 miles in a northwest direction ending near the high desert town of Palmdale about 40 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.

10 a.m.: The San Andreas Fault ruptures, sending shock waves racing at 2 miles per second.

+30 seconds: The agricultural Coachella Valley shakes first. Older buildings crumble. Fires start. Sections of Interstate 10, one of the nation's major east-west corridors, break apart.

+1 minute: Interstate 15, a key north-south route, is severed in places. Rail lines break; a train derails. Tremors hit burgeoning Riverside and San Bernardino counties east of Los Angeles.

+1 minute, 30 seconds: Shock waves advance toward the Los Angeles Basin, shaking it violently for 55 seconds.

+2 minutes: The rupture stops near Palmdale, but waves march north toward coastal Santa Barbara and into the Central Valley city of Bakersfield.

+2 minutes, 30 seconds: Emergency responders begin to fan across the region. A magnitude-7 aftershock hits, but sends its energy south into Mexico. Several more big aftershocks will hit in following days and months.

It took 300 people a year to come up with that? Disappointing and boring, to say the least...