A Show of Hands
This one’s gonna be real short. I mean, what is there to say…
In case you missed it, there was a 7.7 earthquake in Myanmar yesterday (28 March 2025). The reasons for the quake are obvious to anyone with even a minimal background in science and plate tectonics, and I won’t cover them again. Feel free to wander through my earlier posts on earthquakes if you are a bit fuzzy.
The death toll stands at over 1600 at this time (Saturday morning PDT), and is expected to rise significantly as the rubble is sifted and the true extent of the devastation is assessed (one estimate I saw predicts greater than 10k). International aid is starting to arrive, and more is promised, including from the UN and the United States.
Unfortunately, concerns are already being raised about the extent and timing of any US assistance, in light of the recent and ongoing reductions at USAID, and other agencies tasked with rendering timely assistance in the wake of international, and domestic, disasters. According to an article on the Associated Press website:
Sarah Charles, a former senior USAID official who oversaw disaster-response teams and overall humanitarian work under the Biden administration, said the system was now “in shambles,” without the people or resources to move quickly to pull out survivors from collapsed buildings and otherwise save lives.
One can only hope that this is nothing more than sour grapes and fear-mongering by a fired Biden-era superfluous employee no longer living the good life off our taxes. Or maybe not. One thing is certain: the next couple days should answer the question one way or the other. Until next time…
Speaking of the next time, I would like to invest a couple words on something along the lines of: What’s it going to look like when the inevitable major quake hits somewhere here in America?
Will it happen? Absolutely!
There are very few givens in the Earth Sciences (one reason it is so easy for so many to discount everything that even hints of science), but a major rupture somewhere along the Pacific coast is as guaranteed as anything can be. Maybe today, maybe next year, maybe not until your grandkids are having kids of their own. But it WILL happen.
And, whether it’s a 9.2 along the Cascadia Subduction Zone that takes out the I-5 corridor from Medford to Seattle, or an 8.2 along the San Andreas that levels the metropolitan areas around either Los Angeles or San Francisco, it won’t be pretty.
Imagine a repeat of the 1906 quake under San Francisco Bay, but this time with 100,000 casualties and hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars in damage. As I indicated in a recent post on the fires in Los Angeles (“This Will Be Painful”), there is no insurance company in the world that can absorb that level of outlay. So, when they fail, it will fall to the federal government to respond financially.
But can the US Treasury handle the unimaginable cost? Without assistance from other concerned and willing nations, even our deep pockets may struggle to come up with the funds. I guess it’s a good thing that we continue to be such honorable and dependable international neighbors, and still enjoy the global reputation that America has spent the past two hundred years building and strengthening.
Or do we?
One more (unsolicited) comment before I get back to work: The allocation of federal funds — both amount and timing — is contingent upon the magnanimity of the federal government, and that in large measure is dependent upon whoever happens to be posturing behind the Resolute desk.
Whatever your political leanings, this much is certain: For whoever happens to be in the Oval, it’s absolutely crucial that the feds respond quick enough to get to the victims in the critical first twenty-four to forty-eight hours. After that, rescue operations quickly transition to recovery operations, with all that implies.
And a quick response means just that. Consider that your house is on fire. Do you want the Fire Department to slide down the pole and head toward your place NOW, or spend a couple hours thinking about who owns the house, and if they deserve the effort?
So, let’s consider an entirely plausible scenario where the San Andreas lets loose with an 8.2 within the next year. Who thinks that the Powers That Be in DC would immediately mobilize the critical aid resources when San Francisco is in ruins and thousands of woke liberal lunatics lie buried in the rubble?
Let’s see a show of hands…
UPDATE 31 March 2025: From an article in the NY Times:
China, Russia and India have dispatched emergency teams and supplies to earthquake-ravaged Myanmar. So have Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.
The United States, the richest country in the world and once its most generous provider of foreign aid, has sent nothing.
Even as President Trump was dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, he said that American help was on its way… But a three-person U.S.A.I.D. assessment team is not expected to arrive until Wednesday…
UPDATE 5 April 2025: From an article in the BBC:
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has dismissed accusations that Washington was left unable to help in the Myanmar earthquake due to the Donald Trump administration’s shuttering of its humanitarian aid agency.
Asked by the BBC why the US had not meaningfully responded, as it routinely has to past such disasters, Rubio said “we are not the government of the world”.
Earlier this week, former officials at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) said the US was left unable to send rescuers and dogs due to the agency’s dismantling.
Rubio said the US had to balance global humanitarian rescue work with “other needs” and “other priorities” that were in the US national interests.
“There’s a lot of other rich countries in the world, they should all be pitching in.
“We’re going to do our part. We already have people there. We’ll have more people there. We’ll help as much as we can [but] it’s not the easiest place to work… they have a military junta that doesn’t like us,” Rubio said.
GeoMan’s comment: After the past week, there are probably many around the globe that don’t like us…
I vote that, as with all big issues, everybody from feds down to neighborhoods should plan for and set aside resources for big disasters. I do, and I expect all levels of government to do so.
As for my raised hand -I have no doubt that, regardless of who is in charge in DC or whatever rhetoric they espouse, the feds will respond to the max with whatever resources are available to them. The question is not really whether they would respond or whether disabled veterans or LGBTQ people are under the rubble, but rather what planning, funding, manpower, and infrastructure at all levels from feds down to neighborhoods have put in place to handle the situations that face us – climate, Earth burps and jiggles, fires, manmade engineering failures, solar flares, meteorite impacts, war, etc? If the trigger gets pulled for a big event, there is no amount of planning that will completely mitigate it, but it is 100% guaranteed that if any level of response cuts its planning or resources, then more people will die and the survivors will have a more impaired future. If the feds’ plan is to chainsaw cut USGS, FEMA, NOAA, FCC, FAA, DHS, USACE, DHHS, Interior, funding to states, and then sort it out later by plugging holes with know-nothing political sycophants, more people will die and recovery will be slower.
Remember W Bush’s brown-nose “Brownie” – FEMA head during Katrina? Who handles the water- and food-borne disease epidemic after the “big one” – Kennedy Jr, Dr Oz, Kristi Noem?
For my part at the neighborhood level – if Cascadia hits us, I have plan and supplies, my neighborhood knows that I have a tractor, chainsaw, self-contained RV, and radio comms capability. We know where to gather to help each other. I am about to pull the trigger to add a generator to supplement my solar array. Luckily, my house is just a little above bedrock, well above water.
And, as example of how things really work – half of the rebuilding workforce after Katrina were latino, and half of those were undocumented. And almost all of them were in country before Katrina – ready to work…kind of a strategic national labor reserve. In related questions – ask Willamette Valley farmers who harvests their crops, ask Chesapeake Bay oystermen and crabbers who does their processing, ask home builders who drives their nails, ask Georgia peach growers who harvests their fruit, ask who butchers your meat, ask me who put my last roof on, etc.
The point I was trying to raise wasn’t so much WILL the various governmental agencies show up — they will certainly have to — but WHEN. The first few days are critical. Maybe not for the long term “recovery” operations, but for the “rescue” of those still clinging to life and hoping to hear the sounds of helping hands trying to dig through the rubble. The difference between rescue and recovery is crucial; not just for the victims, but also to their loved ones.
And yes, local planning will be necessary. I’ve been ringing the Cascadia bell in classes at both the high school and college level for over forty years, and pat myself on the back for raising awareness here in SW Oregon (I could go on and on about the changes I’ve seen).
I well remember a “discussion” between two students at the college back in the early 90s during our yearly Cascadia group activity — one was convinced the government will save us all, while the other said we can only count on ourselves and neighborhood preparedness. Neither would entertain the other’s viewpoint, and I almost had to have them take it outside…
I agree, time is of the essence in disaster response. And fast response takes planning, and communication, those two above all else – both before and after the fact. And first response planning is just part of the overall planning I was talking about. Responsible individuals and responsible governments make plans that include doing stuff BEFORE and AFTER something bad happens – like you talking now about how Mother Earth giveth and taketh away, like our local governments and churches educating and organizing response before the fact, like creating networks for comms before the fact, like stockpiling supplies…
The reality is that, in the first couple of days after a disaster, individuals and local first responders are almost all we have. Hospitals and health professionals are of prime importance too. Other public buildings like schools are important too, for gathering places and shelter if nothing else. However, responsible state and federal government creates a communications plan that enables them to receive information from individuals and towns to get their resources to the places that need them the most in the early hours and days. Through time, the response burden logically shifts from individuals to first responders to county to state to federal.
Planning at neighborhood level: educational comms with public before the fact like you and our local citizen groups here are doing, organization of neighborhoods, meeting places established, a method of quickly canvassing who is ok and who is not, caching of supplies at the individual level, emergency radio comms for when cell networks and government comms inevitably fail – planning, planning, planning. I am not of the faith, but I attend meetings at the LDS church next door. They are a good resource and have an innate structured response heirarchy. I have a very thorough 19 page emergency preparedness document for the Silverton Ward that is kind of like a pilot’s checklist. Hook up with those guys.
Your two students were a microcosm of our current climate – both are at extremes, when common sense says 1) yes, we need to be self reliant where it makes sense, and 2) yes, we also need to be able to rely on governmental and non-governmental organizations where that makes sense. I look around and see a bunch of old or otherwise infirm people who are just barely able to get by in the present environment or already require care. There’s no way the able folks will be able to save or take care of themselves AND all the infirm people. I see a bunch of infrastructure that EVERYBODY relies on, which no individuals will be able to fix – clean water, power, roads, cell towers, sewage treatment. We need governments to handle the overflow of infirm people and disabled infrastructure.
Lastly, my guns would stay in their safe places. The last thing we would need would be armed civilians patrolling with guns instead of helping other civilians out, and making police and national guard personnel antsy.
Mike, is there a person or organization on the planet who you would recommend as the most advanced in EQ prediction?
Hey Red, good to hear from you. Wish I could give a better response, but there are so many possibilities for EQ as an acronym that I’m not sure which one you are referring to. Can you clarify?
Earthquake prediction.
I know that earthquakes always catch us by surprise, even with the obvious precursors (lunar gravitational influence, foreshocks, etc.). It just seems to me that science and technology should be at the point by now that reliable and accurate earthquake prediction is more prevalent.
Damn good question, and the failure is not for a lack of trying. Here are the closing paragraphs of a GeoFantasy science sidebar on earthquakes from Marker Bed:
“And the truly unfortunate news is that earthquakes are surely beyond our ability to predict or control. Progress, at least with the prediction part, is creeping forward—seemingly slower than the plates themselves—but there is no method on the horizon promising any reliable level of confidence upon which we can stake our lives. There have been a few notable successes, but the overwhelming majority of temblors are completely missed, at least in advance. Possibly the needed theoretical breakthrough will be like a quake itself: sudden, and without warning.
“And control? Influencing the immense forces involved in plate tectonics seems equally elusive, if not essentially impossible. This is obviously a challenge from a technical standpoint—we’d be like fleas trying to steer the elephant—but it seems equally unlikely on the political front: we probably wouldn’t be allowed to try, even if we could. “You want to do what?”
“Not much is a given when studying the earth sciences, but a noteworthy seismic event, affecting tens of millions, is as guaranteed as anything can be. And it won’t be pretty: rattle an 8.5 under Tokyo, the Persian Gulf, the Los Angeles basin, or countless other concentrations of humanity and the social, political, and economic fallout will encircle the globe.
“But we can’t all bunk with Dorothy. If you happen to find yourself in earthquake country, either for a short visit or the duration, all you can do is be aware of the risk and prepare as well as possible, hope for the best, and then hang on tight when the music begins.”
The notion that accurate earthquake prediction is not feasible is pretty much the standard response I’ve gotten from every USGS inquiry I’ve made. I refuse to accept it.
Maybe Mr. Musk can put his unique autistic mind to work on this when he finishes up with DOGE.
BTW, those excepts from Marker Bed are intriguing. Can’t wait.
Hopefully someone will be successful in the future. That person may well be in preschool now.
Earthquake prediction isn’t just about when – but when, where, how big, and where and how big the effects on humans will be. The most recent big Cascadia quake and tsunami occurred on January 26, 1700. The subduction zone fault footwall slipped/slumped down about 20 meters over hundreds of kilometers along strike at a depth from submarine surface to 10’s of kilometers below surface. It was approximately magnitude 9. Any coastal structure below about 15 meters above sea level would be wiped out by such an event. The tsunami would be 2-5m high in JAPAN. Any structure built on unconsolidated sediment in the western third of Oregon or Washington would sustain severe damage – that’s the Willamette floodplain, at least. All infrastructure in that area would be disabled. I don’t know if they would, but what if a bunch of large high voltage grid towers fall over and dams fail? I hope I do not get to find out. I just drove OR-6 to Tillamook, over several miles where the road has slumped several feet WITHOUT AN EARTHQUAKE. The big one would render OR-6 and all other coast range roads unusable for weeks, at least. Coastal access would be by boat at docks which have sunk down by a few meters.
Predicting time/place/magnitude of such a thing is beyond current human ability, if prediction is to be useful for individuals or governments to call for timely evacuation of buildings and the coast. I speculate that, to get that ability, a regionwide network of instrumentation and scientists would have to be in place to record the NEXT big one – submarine chemical and flow monitoring of subduction zone emanations offshore, regional submarine and terrestrial micromotion sensing, regional micro- and macro-seismicity detection and analysis, regional monitoring of groundwater, regional subsurface electromagnetic sensing, and others I can’t imagine. Then, maybe they could predict the NEXT one AFTER the NEXT one.
As evidence of the slow, inexorable, huge forces at play, I submit SW Oregon. There, we find rocks that used to be at least 10 kilometers below the bottom of the ocean, now several thousand feet above the ocean. We see what was once a carbonate shelf or reef cooked to marble. We see old island arcs plastered on the continent. We see rocks FUBAR.
Nevertheless, let’s suspend disbelief and say Elon’s genZ savants tell us on January 1, 2029 that there will be a magnitude 8.0 Cascadia subduction zone earthquake located from the latitude of Portland down to Brookings in the third week of January, 2029, and government at all levels believes them. [It’s on genZ gurus because OSU geophysics and engineering funding have been cut, and regional USGS offices have been closed by DOGE.] PNW governors order evacuation of coastal people to high ground or further. They order all people to evacuate buildings determined to be at risk. Utilities put their plans in action and position their assets. After a few days of mandatory evacuations, PNW governors close coast range roads and Pacific ports. ALL National Guard and ALL first responders are put on duty and are pre-positioned with resources. The outgoing and incoming presidents coordinate the federal response (?). All relevant regional US armed forces assets are put on alert and pre-positioned. The remaining US forces are put on alert to counter a country that might make an opportunistic move on their geopolitical objectives.
SO, to continue the thought experiment – Say, the quake is 9.0 instead of 8.0. That’s 10 times more amplitude and over 30 times more energy. Oopsies. Say, science and Musk skeptics don’t obey the evacuation orders. Some politicians, bloggers, pundits, and preachers urge them to disobey. And, when the quake doesn’t happen until May, everybody is back home when it happens, and doubly mad at the government and Musk, and doubly dead. Or, if it doesn’t happen for years, nobody will ever believe government again.