On Apr 16, 4:24 pm, Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 08:15:47 -0700 (PDT), Weatherlawyer

Weatherlaw...@hotmail.com> wrote:
On Apr 16, 2:51 pm, "rick++" <rick...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Why is this news?

People need to be reminded periodically.
Its been 10 years since last large land quake
and 14 since urban area (I not counting San Simeon
or Parkfield).
In the meantime the USGS budget has been cut in
half in real dollars. After the next destructive quake
the politicians will all whine why no one is doing anything.

What would they do with more money? Build bigger walls against us
kooks? Besides, if it came to a choice I'd get rid of ...

They would do what they began doing after the Loma Prieta and
Northridge earthquakes: re-inforcing buildings and public
infrastructure like highway bridges and all. Even, as in the case
of the San Francisco Bay Bridge, replacing the whole thing (or,
in that case, the cantilever eastern portion).

That is the province of the USGS?

I'd have thought it was the purview of the local county or state's
engineering department. How did the USGS go about it? I find the whole
idea fascinating.

What would they do with more money? Build bigger walls against us
kooks?

It is my understanding that CalTrans has pretty much completed its seismic
retrofitting of all State Highway overpasses in California. Those bridges
have performed exceptionally well in the past, even prior to the
retrofitting.

Snarky, rudely sarcastic or disrespectful; snide. Hmm..

Would it be irresponsible of me to point out that it hardly requires a
large budget to inform most principled engineers what sort of design
parameters they aught to be issuing to architects in earthquake prone
areas?

The fact of the matter is that there is more need to strip search pre-
menstrual tourists in airport toilets these days than for the servants
of the Chimp to inform the government who has detonated a nuclear
device and where.

"Mike Williams" <miklwlms@pacbell.net> wrote in news:tkpNj.1347$FF6.1054
@newssvr29.news.prodigy.net:

It is my understanding that CalTrans has pretty much completed its seismic
retrofitting of all State Highway overpasses in California. Those bridges
have performed exceptionally well in the past, even prior to the
retrofitting.

There's a bridge in my area that recently got fitted with steel
jackets. Considering the number of pillars, how short they are,
and now the jackets, I can't see that thing coming down in even
the biggest potential quake for the area. It looks massively
over-engineered.

Jackets on concrete columns address a problem noted after the
Loma Prieta earthquake. A number of such columns were found to
have had the verticals of the rebar cage inside the concrete had
expanded and splayed out like taking off a Mexican finger trap.
The plates restrain this from happening.

using a lot of circumferential rebar hoops at initial
construction can solve this problem, but many old bridges didn't
allow for that kind of massive downward force.

The circumferential plating is not there to strengthen the column
against bending.

Would it be irresponsible of me to point out that it hardly requires a
large budget to inform most principled engineers what sort of design
parameters they aught to be issuing to architects in earthquake prone
areas?

Why is this news?

People need to be reminded periodically.
Its been 10 years since last large land quake
and 14 since urban area (I not counting San Simeon
or Parkfield).
In the meantime the USGS budget has been cut in
half in real dollars. After the next destructive quake
the politicians will all whine why no one is doing anything.

rick++ wrote:
Why is this news?

People need to be reminded periodically.
Its been 10 years since last large land quake
and 14 since urban area (I not counting San Simeon
or Parkfield).
In the meantime the USGS budget has been cut in
half in real dollars. After the next destructive quake
the politicians will all whine why no one is doing anything.

Exactly. Politicos (esp. in an election year) like to claim they are
cutting big government. They see some $300,000 study about Asian
cornborers or such, and think it is fluff, not work that keeps their
ethanol projects on track, and the farmers in Maize City happy enough to
vote for them again.

People near me want river monitoring and instant flood data, but when you
tell them that takes instrumentation, and people to read and maintain it,
they say government is too big. Natural hazards is too large a field to
hand it over to Billy Bob and Billie Mae from Natural Hazards of Hazard
County, LLC, which some people would like to do. There really does need to
be national coordination on such things.

I've been following a local paper's eq blog "Where were you when the 5.2
or 4.6 on the Wabash Valley Zone hit?" I am amazed at the people who
thought that the shaking was caused by raccoons climbing their houses,
their cats jumping on their beds, quarries blasting at 4:30 a.m. in a
residential area, burglars (one fellow said he thought it was an intruder
using power tools) and equally, the number of 5 to 9 year olds who
reported more accurately than the adults, as in "Mommy, what's shaking my
bed?" while the parents cowered and rationalized the movement. One lady
took her cell phone, car keys, put on her shoes, and took the comforter
from her bed and headed for the basement. (eeek!)

Obviously, the USGS has a lot of work to do to educate people, and so does
FEMA (Federal Earthquake Management Agency *|;-^)

The 'animal predicts earthquake" people might want to take a look at that
blog -- www.stltoday.com under Talk of the Day, if they want a mess of
anecdotal reports. Most of the animal unusual responses, however, weren't
far enough in advance for the humans to do anything, especially since they
were more worried about raccoons with power tools attacking their homes.

raccoons with power tools attacking their homes.

What would they do with more money? Build bigger walls against us
kooks? Besides, if it came to a choice I'd get rid of ...

rick++ wrote:

Exactly. Politicos (esp. in an election year) like to claim they are
cutting big government. They see some $300,000 study about Asian
cornborers or such, and think it is fluff, not work that keeps their
ethanol projects on track, and the farmers in Maize City happy enough to
vote for them again.

On Apr 20, 9:43 am, Jo Schaper <jo345sch765a...@s9ocket.net> wrote:
rick++ wrote:

Exactly. Politicos (esp. in an election year) like to claim they are
cutting big government. They see some $300,000 study about Asian
cornborers or such, and think it is fluff, not work that keeps their
ethanol projects on track, and the farmers in Maize City happy enough to
vote for them again.

These cuts pretty started when Newt Gingrich took Congress in 1994.
Anything dealing with environment was targetted - NASA Earth
satellites,
Dept of Commerce NOAA, Bureau Land Management, and of course the
Department of Interior. Congress is still pretty balanced since 2006,
but these cuts are still being porposed and passing.

On Apr 16, 9:15 am, Weatherlawyer <Weatherlaw...@hotmail.com> wrote:

What would they do with more money? Build bigger walls against us
kooks? Besides, if it came to a choice I'd get rid of ...

I can think of lots of things. I guess the question is whether the
feds want to
retain their internal center of expertise (USGS) or outsource it to
universities.
The NSF buget has a healthy 13% increase in geoscience R&D.

Good post, Jo.

The several responses in this thread seem to indicate that individuals think
there is nothing new in this study. I beg to differ. The information IS new.

But I especially appreciate your mention of how taxpayers object to
spending, say, $300K on obscure subjects such as cornborers. That study's
cost, for instance, works out to about one tenth of one
penny/man-woman-child in the U.S., somewhat more/taxpayer. I'm more than
happy to contribute.

But I think you are a little amiss in blaming "the politicos." It is
individuals who don't understand either the function or value of government
who are to blame, and the groups they form. For all we like to disdain our
politicians, for the most part they are intelligent and accomplished
individuals who are forced by the system to kow-tow to the often ignorant
beliefs of the electorate.

More NPR, less "Reality TV".