More Earthquakes? Are We Next?

This morning I woke up to the news that Puerto Rico was hit with a 5.9 magnitude earthquake overnight. That's a pretty good shaker, but nothing compared with Chile, Haiti and Baja California earlier this year. So I asked the question, "Why so many earthquakes recently?" The answer is, there has not been an increase in earthquakes over the past few years. In fact, there has been a decrease in the number of higher magnitude earthquakes over the past few years. The reason we think there have been more is that our ability to detect earthquakes has increased dramatically.

The modern science of seismology is not all that old. The Richter scale wasn't even introduced to the U.S. until 1935 by U.S. seismologists Beno Gutenberg and Charles Richter. And the moment magnitude scale, which measures larger earthquakes even more accurately than the Richter scale, has only been used since 1993.

Powerful earthquakes have been happening since the beginning of time. We are just in the infancy of developing tools and techniques for measuring and predicting earthquakes. Actually, earthquakes cannot be predicted (except for a few second warning) even now. But from the science of seismology we know where earthquakes will occur. We just don't know when.

Early in history, and perhaps even today in some cultures, people think that Divine intervention caused an earthquake, but science proves them wrong. It has to do with plate tectonics and other things I know nothing about, but I'll take their word for it. We're going to have a big earthquake in California. The question is "When?" Nobody knows for sure, so all we can do is prepare. Our buildings today are built to withstand even the strongest earthquakes. Communities must not get lax in their preparations for the big one just because nothing's happened lately.

So, seismic activity is no greater than it has been in the past. It's just that our tools for measuring the earth's movement have improved so that we are completely aware of all seismic activity. All we can do as citizens is make sure that we are prepared in our own homes and our communities. I remember living in Los Angeles during several big earthquakes. After each one, neighborhoods got together to prepare for a big quake. There were team captains for each street and everyone had a specific job. This was great, but over time there was no earthquake, people moved out of the neighborhood, people forgot what they were supposed to do, and I believe that if there was a big quake today, most of these neighborhoods would have no plan in place. I don't know what the answer is. I just think each of us should know the basics for our own home. Have plenty of water on hand, know how to turn off your gas at the street, have a portable radio and flashlights available with fresh batteries and hope you never need any of them.