However, estimating the toll is the first step toward reducing losses. By 2006, retrofits for 10 major central campus buildings will be completed. Safeguarding the contents of Berkeley's many laboratories and research facilities, including equipment, computers and instruments, is a key aspect of earthquake preparedness that has not been addressed yet. Comerio recommended an aggressive nonstructural mitigation effort. That is a very inexpensive, preventive measure for reducing our losses in a major earthquake.
Earthquake prediction is an imperfect science.
In most earthquake-prone regions of the world, the dangers are largely invisible. The great fault lines and fracture zones lie deep within bedrock, where only sophisticated seismological instruments can pinpoint their location. But in California, where the San Andreas Fault is as well known as the Golden Gate Bridge, the earthquake is a palpable presence, its scar in many places clearly visible. The Hayward-Rodgers Creek and Calaveras faults are the other likely suspects. For major urban areas near these faults, such as San Francisco and Berkeley, geography is destiny.