HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: stead@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: Running out of the building
Date: 18 Aug 92 21:37:14 GMT
Distribution: ca

In article <64219@cup.portal.com>, Harv@cup.portal.com (Harv R Laser) writes:
> And how about that large, nearly new multi-story hotel in the 
> Philippines that collapsed during a quake a couple years back? Wasn't
> it a Holiday Inn or a Hilton or some other big-name American chain
> hotel? Was it built to American construction standards or is the
> the situation in the Philippines similar to what it is in Russia,
> where the codes are lax or nonexistant? 

% mount soapbox

Hard to say if it was built to any standards.  These hotel chains are
international corporations and there is undoubtedly some sort of
Hilton of the Phillippines, inc. (or whatever the hotel chain was) that
was actually fully in charge of construction and operations.  It would
have been governed by Phillippine law, but was probably built under
Marcos, and a simple bribe would take care of any building code problems.
Mexico City is an excellant example.  If all those buildings had been
built to code, as it existed at the time they were built, none would have
likely collapsed.  The corruption there is readily apparent.  And instead
of investigating and bringing people to justice for this nonsense, the
government just encourages a fear of quakes, saying "Oh, aren't quakes
terrible" and "It was an act of God" and whatnot (yeah, blame a deity
for something that was directly the fault of corrupt officials and
builders).  Anyway, people eat that crap up, because it is ingrained
in every culture that quakes are bad and there's nothing we can do.
Of course, it's a load of BS, but what are you gonna do?

Any death from a collapsed structure in a quake is the direct result
of some a-hole who got rich off cutting corners somewhere, whether
the official for resisting sound codes or not enforcing them, or the builders
for building something they know is sub-standard, or polticians that
allow buildings found to be hazardous to continue to be occupied without
requiring refitting.  The Cypress structure was known to be deficient -
so the biggest source of deaths in Loma Prieta would have been avoided
if they had retrofitted that thing.  My understanding is that they were
worried it would cost too much.  The mall that collapsed in Santa Cruz
was also known to be deficient.  It should have been reinforced.  There
were 8000 structures in LA when I lived there that were known to be
substandard.  It's about time something was done about them.

Don't just wring your hands when death occurs in a quake - get angry.
Vote the bums out.  Sue.  Boycott.  Whatever.  Corrupt rich people are
to blame, not God or nature or seismologists or engineers.

% umount soapbox

Oh yeah, should make it clear that this is my opinion alone.  I sure
hope some other people feel the same way, though.


--
Richard Stead
Center for Seismic Studies
Arlington, VA
stead@seismo.css.gov
From: stead@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: Power LInes
Date: 21 Aug 92 16:17:34 GMT

In article <1992Aug21.030247.10580@puffin.uucp>, pete@puffin.uucp (Pete Carah) writes:
> In article <1992Aug19.190251.23150@netlabs.com> lwall@netlabs.com (Larry Wall) writes:
> >In article <51096@seismo.CSS.GOV> stead@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
> >
> >: If you attempt to leave, even by jumping, the entire current of the cable
> >: will follow your body to the ground.
> >
> >Oh, nonsense.  The main reason to discourage jumping is because Persons
> >of Indeterminate Competence will screw it up
...
> >maintain a path of ionized air between you and the car.  I doubt you
> >have enough innate capacitance for that without the help of the ground.
> 
> Easy if line is above 30-50kv.  Those are quite common, and the air only
> has to be a little moist.  (remember that air's field strength of 10kv/inch
> 
> Basic advice is DON'T LEAVE the car.
> 
> -- Pete

Thanks, that's pretty informative.

I have a question regarding this issue - how strong are the inductive forces
which act on you if you attempt to jump from the car?  I know there has
to be some inductive force retarding your forward motion but I have no
idea how big it is or how to begin to estimate it.  The idea is that
if someone is a real athlete and can jump 10 feet from the car under
ordinary circumstances, would induction prevent him from getting 10 feet
if his car was at 230kV?

Just curious.


--
Richard Stead
Center for Seismic Studies
Arlington, VA
stead@seismo.css.gov
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
From: hough@seismo.gps.caltech.edu (Susan Hough)
Subject: Re: Shaking Buildings w/o Earthquakes
Summary:  really a wonderful story 
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Distribution: ca
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 19:38:03 GMT

In article <1992Aug21.144137.12483@wdl.loral.com> gjs@wdl50.wdl.loral.com (Gregory Scott) writes:
>In article <51106@seismo.CSS.GOV> stead@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
>>
>>...The better
>>story is they tracked secret flights of experimental aircraft over southern
>>california by their seismic footprints.  And defense won't confirm or deny, of
>>course.
>
>A good article on that can be found on page 62 of the May 11, 1992 
>issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology.

This really is a story to warm a person's heart.  Jim Mori, who came
across the seismic signals and realized that they could be interpretted
in terms of a very fast airplane, has gotten several calls from the
Air Force.  Once they said, "Gee, we don't know what it could be, but
could you send us the data that you have?".  And once they called in
advance to tell him that there would be flights of a standard military
plane on a certain day so he shouldn't be surprised to see more signals.
Yeah.  Right.  And I'm Chuck Yeager.  

You can just see all of these high level Pentagon types saying, Oh, sh*t. 

Sue Hough
From: rah@public.BTR.COM (Richard A Hyde  rah@btr.com)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: Power LInes
Date: 22 Aug 92 01:51:29 GMT
Organization: BTR Public Access UNIX, MtnView CA. Contact: Customer Service cs@BTR.COM

There is a similar thread now going on in sci.electronics detailing
peoples "shocking" experiences.

One poster pointed out that if you happen to be standing near a live
downed power line, you should take a number of very small steps to
get away from it.  If you took a *large* step, the difference in 
voltage between your near foot and your far foot could be fatal.

I suppose you could hop on one foot  :-)

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   Richard Hyde  |  RaH@btr.com  |    This space intentionally left blank   |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
From: eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: Re: Personal Tales of Big Earthquakes
Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 01:31:23 GMT
Distribution: ca

In article <1992Aug18.230052.28384@unocal.com>
stgprao@xing.unocal.com (Richard Ottolini) writes:
>Loma Prieta quake at 4th floor Stanford Math Library.  
>All the books fell into waist-deep piles between the rows of shelves. 
>I don't know if they found anyone under the books :-)
>
>A wall of bookshelves crashed onto the desk of the Stanford geophysics dept
>head.

Actually, this is a good important topic.
Our libraries suffered $250K in damage in 1989 which effectively eliminated
a good portion of our 1990 new book budget.

In addition to books, over a ton of fiche landed on the floor.  Shelves
containing many pounds of books were precariously balanced to fall on anyone
who tried to fix shelves.  Two interesting things happened:
	1) shelves, bolted into the walls, pulled.
	2) free standing shelves with cross-bracing bowed outward
		causing next to end-piece shelves to fall straight down.
A latent hazard (which I think Stanford too) had was unsettling dust
which might have contained asbestos.

--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@orville.nas.nasa.gov
  Ames Library Committee
  Resident Cynic, Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers
  {uunet,mailrus,other gateways}!ames!eugene
Second Favorite email message: Returned mail: Cannot send message for 3 days
A Ref: Mathematics and Plausible Reasoning, vol. 1, G. Polya
From: stead@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: Questions raised by SoCal Activity
Keywords: usgs refs, landers
Date: 20 Aug 92 19:18:59 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.065133.16155@nas.nasa.gov>, eugene@wilbur.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) writes:
> things like the 1872 scarp outside Lone Pine (Richard knows this) so this
> is rhetorical.

Good scarp!  Best vertical motion fault scarp in CA.  (There are better
ones in Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Montana, just 'cause they're newer).


--
Richard Stead
Center for Seismic Studies
Arlington, VA
stead@seismo.css.gov
From: lstowell@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: Running out of the building
Date: 19 Aug 92 14:43:39 GMT
Reply-To: lstowell@pyrnova.pyramid.com (Lon Stowell)
Distribution: ca
Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp., Mountain View, CA
Originator: daemon@sword.eng.pyramid.com

In article <64219@cup.portal.com> Harv@cup.portal.com (Harv R Laser) writes:
>The running out of the building reaction could be due to many factors.

   Sadly in the Loma Prieta, one of the casualties was due to a
   newcomer running out of the building in too big a hurry.
   Unfortunately, they were NOT on the ground floor at the time...
From: klabbers@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Pam Klabbers)
Subject: Re: Shelf life of canned foods
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Reply-To: klabbers@hepxvt.ps.uci.edu (Pam Klabbers)
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 12 Aug 92 16:43:12 GMT


My husband and I have about 14 of the MRI's used in the Gulf war by soldiers
given to us by a friend in the national guard.  They are in such appealing
combinations as Franks and Beans, but should last and have 3000 calories 
each, so we could easily survive on one a day.  4 of them are split between
our two cars, so that in case we cant get home right away...  We also always
have an extra 5 gallon water bottle on hand and rotate it through our usual 
water usage.  My next step is to assemble a first aid kit.  Does anyone
know if you can buy an official manual from the Red Cross through a bookstore?
   Thanks, Pam

Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
From: krissie@locus.com (Krissie Griffiths)
Subject: Re: Running out of the building
Organization: Locus Computing Corporation, Los Angeles, California
Distribution: ca
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 22:26:33 GMT

In article <Bt5nLL.GJv@well.sf.ca.us> casey@well.sf.ca.us (Kathleen Creighton) writes:
>
>You know, it has been my observation that the *first* thing people are going
>to do is "leave the building".  That's what I did.  That's what my
>neighbors did.  That's what everyone's who's posted here did.  And from
>hearing their stories, that's what people in SoCal did, too.  We didn't
>know this until we experienced it ourselves, but wanting *out* of the
>building seems like a natural response.
>
>What do you think?

hi kathleen:

what do i think?  well the 6/28 quakes down here were to say the least
unnerving.  the one just before 5 am woke me and i realized there was something
really big going on and i had hoped to ride it out (in panic) but it just
did not seem to stop.  i finally got one foot out of the bed getting ready
to head for the doorway.  finally it abated.

the next one about 8 am, same thing, only my location at that time was 
glued to the futon in front of the t.v. watching coverage on the 5 am
quake.  once again, waiting for it to stop, and once again getting ready
to head for the doorway.  about then it stopped.

perhaps i figure at home i am better off inside, as there are a lot of 
power lines right around my place and they are on those huge cement poles.

i guess a sense of where one is and surroundings is a good thing.

kg


-- 
so what if i am a vegan?  so what if i try to live a cruelty free lifestyle?
i'll tell you what, i sleep better at night knowing that nothing suffers for
anything i eat or wear and i try to use products that have not involved been
tested on animals.  i can't cure all the world's ills, but i'm doing a
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
From: stgprao@xing.unocal.com (Richard Ottolini)
Subject: Landers magnitude decline curves
Originator: stgprao@xing
Organization: Unocal Corporation
Distribution: ca
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 15:33:16 GMT


My graphs of magnitude vs. time now have about four months of data in them from
the 4/22/92 Joshua Tree quake until last Tuesday.  It is fairly clear, by
inspection, the Landers quake decline sequence is exponential while the the
Joshua Tree quake decline is less percipitous, essentially linear.
I wonder if this has any significance.  I look forward to hearing from the
foreshock expert, Lucy, possibly at the December AGU meeting in SF.

Speaking of the AGU, I'll post the times of the Lander's session when they
announced in the near future.  This is likely to be a hot year for California
quakes with both the Mendocino and Mohave activity.  Unfortunately, prices are
high, approaching $100 for a one-day attendence by a non-member.  More details
later.  The meeting is Dec 7-11 in San Francisco.
Xref: sparky ca.earthquakes:906 sci.geo.geology:1785
From: andy@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Andy Michael USGS Guest)
Subject: Re: Shaking Buildings w/o Earthquakes
Organization: Stanford Univ. Earth Sciences
Distribution: ca
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 20:04:47 GMT

In article <51144@seismo.CSS.GOV> stead@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:
>In article <1992Aug21.155030.9464@qualcomm.com>, karn@servo.qualcomm.com (Phil Karn) writes:
>> Richter in his book says that even gunfire (presumably artillery) has
>> also registered at significant distances on seismographs in California
>
>Since we tend to bury seismometers and try to isolate them from the atmosphere,
>they're not the best for registering this.  What's best is folks that have
>sliding glass doors facing San Clemente Island in Orange County.  They can't
>hear the shots, but the glass rattles, and then they call Caltech to see if
>there was a quake.
They may not be best for artillery but they do pretty well for destruction
of old ordinance.  This is done on a regular basis in far northeastern CA
with blasts of a few thousand lbs at the surface (at least, that's what
I've heard, but that's an incredible blast so it must be in some isolated
deep valley).  These blasts will get recorded all over the northern CA
seismic net when the atmospheric conditions are good for it.  Usually
there is a period once a year when we see them a couple of times a day
and the waves do propagate at the speed of sound in air.  These blasts
are also reported as heard, and as moving water in pools, at distances up
to a couple hundred km!!  Its the sort of wierd stuff that gets recorded
on seismic nets that you get used to after several years of working in the
same area.

Andy
From: lwall@netlabs.com (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: Personal Tales of Big Earthquakes
Date: 14 Aug 92 17:19:06 GMT
Organization: NetLabs, Inc.

In article <1992Aug14.042627.12532@qualcomm.com> karn@chicago.qualcomm.com (Phil Karn) writes:
: In article <8164.18151@stratus.SWDC.Stratus.COM> jane@soave.swdc.stratus.com (Jane Beckman) writes:
: >As I huddled under my desk, I watched *five inch
: >tall* waves ripple through the floor of my office, about eight
: >feet apart, just like ripples on a water surface.  Weirdest
: >(and scariest) thing I've ever seen.  It was like the concrete
: >floor wasn't solid, but fluid.  I've never thought of "solid"
: >structures in quite the same way, since.
: 
: Richter, in "Elementary Seismology", has a bit to say about these wave
: observations. It seems that they're more likely to be perceptual
: illusions than real waves, otherwise the material couldn't possibly
: remain intact.

[Er, uh, you'd think that Mr. Richter would know that the material often
*doesn't* remain intact...]

But yes, you can actually reproduce one of these illusions easily.  Find a
nice long pencil, and hold it about an inch and a half from one end.
Hold it loosely and move your hand up and down.  When you hit the right
frequency the presumably-still-rigid pencil will appear to be made out
of rubber.

Not that there *aren't* real waves involved with earthquakes.  And
well-made concrete is a lot more flexible than people give it credit
for, as long as you're not relying on the concrete for tensile strength...

Larry Wall
lwall@netlabs.com
From: rlm@mcgort.COM (Robert McMillin)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: Running out of the building
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 92 16:36:00 PDT
Organization: PBSR (Private Beta Site Research - Certified NetWare Engineer)

stead@skadi.CSS.GOV (Richard Stead) writes:

> two deaths were avoidable.  One man, a recent immigrant from Guatemala,
> leapt to his death from his second-floor window.  Best guess is that he
> was used to the collapses of structures in Guatemala during quakes and
> did what would havebeen the smart thing there.  The third death was a college
> woman who tried to run out of a parking garage.  She was hit by a large piece
> of decorative concrete that fell from the outside wall.
> 
> The point is, by far the most dangerous area in a quake is just outside any
> building (on any side, not just where the door is).  This is where the most

Especially if the danger is falling Guatemalans, a substantially heavier
load than a single brick or a concrete griffin.
From: Harv@cup.portal.com (Harv R Laser)
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Subject: Re: Running out of the building
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 09:25:52 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: ca

The running out of the building reaction could be due to many factors.
1) it's extremely disconcerting to hear one's home or office creaking
and moaning for many seconds, and wood-frame construction creaks and
moans a lot during a quake.  One does not inherently know how much of
this stress the building in which one is located can take. Most of us
are not privvy to the construction of the building, unless one lives
in a custom-built house to which one visitied the construction site
every few days to see how things were going. I asked the manager of
the apt building in which I live how old the place was and she didn't
know. 

2) Those who watch the news a lot are imprinted with visions of the
Armenia quake a few years ago in which tens of thousands of people
were buried under the rubble of the concrete-slab buildings in which
they lived. Now all the construction-oriented people in the world can tell
me that well sure, in Russia they have little to no reinforcement in
their construction, that their codes are very lax, that that kind of
building comes falling down like a house of cards since the floors and
walls are concrete too and many of them didn't even use re-bar.

We're also imprinted with images of the Oakland double deck freeway
section that collapsed, the houses in the Marina district of SF which
settled into the ground such that the second floor windows ended up
kissing the street, and so on, so all of these extremely vivid and
oft-repeated images of collapsed structures live in our brains somewhere
and so when a quake starts, for many people, myself included, the
split-second judgement made to get OUT of there is practially
irresistable. 

I know that after the '33 Long Beach quake the codes in Calif. were
radically upgraded. I know that many modern large structures such as
certain malls are actually built on rollers. I know that the Marina
district homes were built on fill and that the TransAmerica pyramid
tower didn't fall over.  I know that LA City Hall, which is many
decades old, didn't topple over during Landers, nor did any of the
old unreinforced masonary buildings downtown, but still those images
of Armenia are haunting and hard to forget. 

And how about that large, nearly new multi-story hotel in the 
Philippines that collapsed during a quake a couple years back? Wasn't
it a Holiday Inn or a Hilton or some other big-name American chain
hotel? Was it built to American construction standards or is the
the situation in the Philippines similar to what it is in Russia,
where the codes are lax or nonexistant? 
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
Newsgroups: ca.earthquakes
From: rchilder@us.oracle.com (Richard Childers)
Subject: Re: Nostradamus & Earthquake Prediction
Organization: Memes-R-Us
Distribution: ca
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 20:17:18 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

jc@optimla.aimla.com (John VanHoozer) writes:

>|>    They should've studied Nicola Tesla's papers.  He succeeded in
>|>    creating a few artificial earthquakes in lower Manhattan by
>|>    smiting the ground (with a piling hammer) at it's resonant
>|>    frequency.   

>That's interesting.  I remember reading an article (not very factual) 
>about Tesla about 10 years ago.  I was under the impression
>that he claimed to have been responsible but refused to explain how
>he had done it.
>
>Can anyone _really_ believe this?

My understanding is that his first demo model was built from the innards of
an alarm clock, and was attached to the structural girders of a high-rise
building under construction. Within a day, he had the structure resonating.

If there is any credibility to the story about his next model, it would be
documented on police blotters of the period. Story is that police were well
aware of his experiements, and so when a large quake shook Manhattan, they
went directly to his office ... where he was engaged in smashing apart some
mechanism which, he claimed, could split the earth like a rotten apple ...

Conspiracy theorists will be interested in noting that Tesla's notes and all
of the contents of his safe were subsumed under the guise of National Security
back around 1948 or so, when he died, penniless.

-- richard

-- 
-- richard childers		rchilder@us.oracle.com		1 415 506 2411
         oracle data center  --  unix systems & network administration

                   Klein flask for rent. Inquire within.