New Warnings, Old Risk
San Francisco and the lessons of New Orleans
The residents of the nation's most doomed city watched with horror as the people of New Orleans floundered despite warnings of impending disaster. But while San Francisco officials are improving their emergency plans, the citizens seem to be shrugging off the lessons, preferring to savor the extra dash of risk that adds piquancy to life atop the San Andreas fault.
Of course, just as every New Orleans resident knew a catastrophic hurricane was inevitable, every San Franciscan knows the "Big One" could hit anytime. The U.S. Geological Survey says San Francisco has a 62 percent chance of a 6.7-magnitude earthquake before 2032.
Improvements. Officially, anyway, San Francisco seems well prepared. Many lessons were learned in the 1906 earthquake and fire that killed about 3,000 people. The city imposed stricter building codes, which were put to the test on Oct. 17, 1989, when a magnitude-7 earthquake struck. At first, the destruction looked horrific. But out of a Bay Area population of nearly 7 million, only 62 people died, about 3,500 were injured, and 12,000 were left homeless. The economic losses were also comparatively light.
In response to the 1989 devastation, the city further tightened building codes, and most major public buildings have been retrofitted to withstand earthquakes. But watching New Orleans collapse has made many officials nervous. Harold Brooks, CEO of the Bay Area Red Cross, says he was taken aback by the "sheer magnitude" of the evacuations. Until now, his chapter's worst-case scenario called for handling just 300,000 evacuees. But now he realizes the group should "increase that number exponentially." The Rev. Cecil Williams, pastor of the Glide Memorial United Methodist Church, says the city lacks sufficient transportation to evacuate its many poor and homeless.
But a spokesman for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom says the New Orleans disaster has only reinforced the necessity for citizens to prepare themselves. The city has long spread that message: Schools and workplaces hold regular earthquake drills, and the city has trained 13,000 block captains in first aid. Still, as many as two thirds of San Franciscans haven't taken even rudimentary steps such as setting aside bottled water, a survey found. And in some neighborhoods, studies show that more than 30 percent of the houses would be destroyed by a magnitude-7 earthquake.
Experience, it seems, may have lulled many San Franciscans into complacency.
This story appears in the September 19, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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