tsunami

[mlind]

I now live in CA and I would guess that the majority of residents are not prepared for an earthquake.  Retrofitting a house can be expensive.  Three big problems are unreinforced masonry, soft-story buildings (parking on the first floor), and buildings built on fill (filled in the bay in SF, for example).  And, of course, just living near a fault.

The next 'big one' in Northern California may be on the Hayward fault that runs through a heavily populated area.  The last one was in 1868. 

http://seismo.berkeley.edu/hayward/hayw ... rview.html

[phuqueue]

Why it is unlikely for the San Andreas fault to create a tsunami, the area in the US that is of concern would be at the island of Hawaii. An area just south of Kilauea has the possibility of simply breaking off and falling into the ocean, not only putting anybody on that area in danger, but also creating a large tsunami (larger than your run-of-the-mill earthquake-born tsunami) from the resulting underwater landslide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilina_Slump

This kind of stuff is pretty overblown.  They say the same thing about that chunk on La Palma, but landslide-based megatsunamis are extremely rare.  Pretty sure Lituya Bay is the only one that's ever actually been witnessed, and while it created a monster wave within the confines of the bay, the wave dissipated pretty quickly once it hit open water.  La Palma, Hilina Slump, etc, would cause pretty massive damage locally (if the worst case scenarios that History Channel megadisaster pseudo-documentaries like to envision came to pass), but the danger posed to coastlines thousands of miles away is far from assured.  You can't say there wouldn't be a threat based just on the observation of Lituya Bay, but it certainly doesn't provide any strong evidence that there would be a threat either.

[KCMax]

Any advice on the best way to support victims? I was guessing the Red Cross as usual.

[phuqueue]

I was reading that Japan doesn't really need or even want charitable donations.  They've been coming in anyway but nobody really knows how the money's even going to be used.  Unlike Haiti or Pakistan or the countries hit in the 2004 tsunami, Japan is obviously a wealthy and highly developed country, so most of the aid they're requesting is from other governments or, in a couple cases, from NGOs with expert specialists, to help them with problems like the nuclear crisis, search and rescue, etc.  The Japanese Red Cross is well equipped to handle the more "mundane" humanitarian crises that arise out of a disaster like this.

If you want to donate to the Red Cross anyway, they've made it pretty easy as they always do (text or website), but from what I understand, it isn't really needed.

edit: here's the specific article I had read http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world ... .html?_r=1

double edit: there's also this http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/0 ... w-to-help/

[mlind]

I just read that donations to Japan are far lower than those given for other disasters.  You can donate to Doctors Without Borders who have sent people there or Shelter Boxes.  Japan has requested help from them.

http://www.shelterbox.org/

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

[bbqboy]

http://public.health.oregon.gov/Prepare ... oring.aspx