One afternoon last week I happened to be watching the History Channel, a show called 'Mega Disasters.' It was about earthquakes, specifically an earthquake that might devastate downtown Los Angeles.
Now, I know there are some of you who might say 'good riddance' to downtown LA, but I happen to live about ten miles away, so the prospect of a mega-disaster just down the highway does interest me. I don't come from earthquake country - I'm from Texas - and I thought watching the show would educate me. All it did was scare the crap out of me.
The Puente Hills Blind Thrust Fault runs right underneath some of the largest skyscrapers in downtown LA. This kind of fault is, evidently, not visible on the surface - the 'blind' part - and is the kind that will push land up rather than split apart or slip side-to-side. So there is a chance that one side of downtown LA will raise up ten feet or more above where it is now. Having forty-plus story buildings right on top of this geologic 'feature' is a recipe for disaster when, not if, an earthquake happens.
So in addition to all the other stuff I have to worry about in a day - alien invasion, giant insects, super-intelligent monkeys taking over, or accidentally being irradiated by a gamma bomb - now I got this hanging over my head too.
Good thing I'm too poor to afford one of those crazy-overpriced downtown lofts. Aside from there being nothing to do downtown, there might not be a downtown any longer.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment