Showing posts with label Chris D. Poland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chris D. Poland. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Killer quake in California?

Following two deadly earthquakes in Haiti and Chile in a six-week span, naturally the talk has turned to the potential of a similar natural disaster rocking the U.S. and whether we're prepared for the impacts of such a jolt. In the Room For Debate blog, Chris D. Poland, the head of Degenkolb Engineeers in San Francisco, says 80% of California's buildings were completed before our safest quake-resistant construction practices were put into effect; 10% of those structures will collapse and kill people, and the state's utilities and transit are quite vulnerable to long-term outages. Several other regions around the country "are facing major earthquakes and not doing enough about it," he writes.