Hello Lloyd, if you read this, from a fellow Utahn. I live one mile from the Wasatch fault here in Salt Lake and this has been on my mind since our 5.7 earthquake in 2020. Luckily this wasn’t on the Wasatch fault, but our house shook pretty good despite being @20 miles from the epicenter. But the news definitely likes to talk about the “big one” and that makes me nervous. (Would you expect anything but fear-tactics from the news?) However, like they say here on FHB, my house is made of wood and it’s most likely to survive. It’s more the stuff on the shelves to be damaged. So be prepared; make sure to turn off the gas line, have enough food storage and water to survive a long period of time and just enjoy life. I do want to share that when the 2020 quake hit, my wife (not knowing an earthquake just hit) yelled at me to stop rough-housing with our dog because we were causing the whole house to shake! 😆😆 I was working on my laptop in the living room and yelled, “that was an earthquake!”. After about 15 second for what just had happened to sink in, I here a panicked “shit” come from her office. So we joke about me and my dog “causing” the earthquake. Cheers.
as a new zealander who is commonly shaken by large quakes, i have seen the difference between the new homes built to the recent standards and the older homes that have stood for 100 years. our house is a 4000 sqft two story stucco exterior tudor style home with timber framing built 100 years ago. we have suffered no damage, even from a 7.2 a few years ago (that one really scared the pants us off as we were upstairs and the rolling was significant). we are on brick piles each pier is 3 foot thick. the modern homes are usually built on a concrete slab foundation with lots of bracing everywhere. we have see on many occasions where these homes suffer significantly more damage, as they are unable to flex and absorb the energy of the quake. in the marlborough quake which was over 8, it was the large modern commercial buildings again that failed with a number needing to be demolished. yet old multi story brick buildings that have stood for many many years, were undamaged, though everyone said those were the ones at risk. i am not saying that the old building methods are better. but i do feel the key here is, as you mentioned, is the ability to flex and absorb energy.
I live in the area being discussed. Code dictates our structures are bolted to the foundation. We are also high desert, so wood framing becomes extremely dry and more brittle.
One thing to pay attention to is the likely direction of shaking. I live next to the San Andreas Fault with is a strike slip fault. It moves horizontally in a roughly north south direction. In the Loma Prieta earthquake my house was roughly perpendicular to the fault. We had very little damage because most of long back side of our bookcases were parallel to the fault. Other houses had book cases that were perpendicular to the fault so they dumped their contents on the floor. To put it another way, it is easier to push over a domino by pushing the large flat face rather than the skinny edge face. Up in Alaska the damaging earthquakes are on thrust faults where the Pacific Plate is being shoved under the North American plate. The shaking on these faults is mostly vertical which can be far more destructive. Thrust fault earthquakes are far more likely to create tsunamis than strike slip faults. There are also thrust faults off the Washington and Oregon coasts that are overdue for major earthquakes.
Hello Lloyd, if you read this, from a fellow Utahn. I live one mile from the Wasatch fault here in Salt Lake and this has been on my mind since our 5.7 earthquake in 2020. Luckily this wasn’t on the Wasatch fault, but our house shook pretty good despite being @20 miles from the epicenter. But the news definitely likes to talk about the “big one” and that makes me nervous. (Would you expect anything but fear-tactics from the news?)
However, like they say here on FHB, my house is made of wood and it’s most likely to survive. It’s more the stuff on the shelves to be damaged. So be prepared; make sure to turn off the gas line, have enough food storage and water to survive a long period of time and just enjoy life.
I do want to share that when the 2020 quake hit, my wife (not knowing an earthquake just hit) yelled at me to stop rough-housing with our dog because we were causing the whole house to shake! 😆😆 I was working on my laptop in the living room and yelled, “that was an earthquake!”. After about 15 second for what just had happened to sink in, I here a panicked “shit” come from her office. So we joke about me and my dog “causing” the earthquake.
Cheers.
as a new zealander who is commonly shaken by large quakes, i have seen the difference between the new homes built to the recent standards and the older homes that have stood for 100 years. our house is a 4000 sqft two story stucco exterior tudor style home with timber framing built 100 years ago. we have suffered no damage, even from a 7.2 a few years ago (that one really scared the pants us off as we were upstairs and the rolling was significant). we are on brick piles each pier is 3 foot thick. the modern homes are usually built on a concrete slab foundation with lots of bracing everywhere. we have see on many occasions where these homes suffer significantly more damage, as they are unable to flex and absorb the energy of the quake. in the marlborough quake which was over 8, it was the large modern commercial buildings again that failed with a number needing to be demolished. yet old multi story brick buildings that have stood for many many years, were undamaged, though everyone said those were the ones at risk. i am not saying that the old building methods are better. but i do feel the key here is, as you mentioned, is the ability to flex and absorb energy.
I live in the area being discussed. Code dictates our structures are bolted to the foundation. We are also high desert, so wood framing becomes extremely dry and more brittle.
One thing to pay attention to is the likely direction of shaking. I live next to the San Andreas Fault with is a strike slip fault. It moves horizontally in a roughly north south direction. In the Loma Prieta earthquake my house was roughly perpendicular to the fault. We had very little damage because most of long back side of our bookcases were parallel to the fault. Other houses had book cases that were perpendicular to the fault so they dumped their contents on the floor. To put it another way, it is easier to push over a domino by pushing the large flat face rather than the skinny edge face.
Up in Alaska the damaging earthquakes are on thrust faults where the Pacific Plate is being shoved under the North American plate. The shaking on these faults is mostly vertical which can be far more destructive. Thrust fault earthquakes are far more likely to create tsunamis than strike slip faults. There are also thrust faults off the Washington and Oregon coasts that are overdue for major earthquakes.
Thanks for the video from Davenport Iowa