San Andreas Fault: When the Big One Hits

Thanks to Dollar Shave Club for sponsoring this video, visit Dollarshaveclub.com. Geographic slash to get your starter set for just five dollars more at a location in the heart of California. There is one of the most terrifying natural phenomena in the world seen from above. The San Andreas Fault appears to be little more than a collection of waves on a carpet of desert beneath the surface, although there are incredible forces at work along this dividing line between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, the two sides of the

fault

should be slowly crawling in opposite directions, instead they are trapped against each other as they try to move, building up more and more tension

when

that energy finally reaches the breaking point, you will get the largest earthquake California has ever seen.

Bad news will happen in our lives. Over the centuries, the San Andreas Fault has unleashed a handful of megaquakes, most recently the 7.9 magnitude monster that leveled San Francisco in 1906. Yet for nearly 120 years it has kept Elaine asleep. building up energy that will soon be released, but what will happen

when

the big one finally arrives and is there anything we can do about it? The answers may be scarier than you can imagine if they ever held a competition to replace California's Golden State nickname with something a little less smug a good contender might be the Seismic State, this is because California may well be the seismic capital of the lower 48 states in an average year.

Southern Californians alone can expect to survive about 10,000 earthquakes, although most of them are too small to be felt. The state is known to be crisscrossed by 500 active

fault

s, any one of which could trigger a nightmare of tremors at any moment, but the main reason California is so associated with earthquakes may be due to a single major fault that runs 800 miles from above San Francisco, passing through Los Angeles. Across the border with Mexico and into the Gulf of California, the infamous San Andreas Fault was created by the meeting of two tectonic plates, the Pacific and North American plates.

The San Andreas Fault has been around for 30 million years, but instead of being static, the fault is constantly moving. Imagine two very slow, very heavy trains lumbering past each other in opposite directions. One of these trains lays Pacific plate is heading northwest the other North American plate is heading southeast the idea is that they should be in constant motion passing each other very slowly without colliding, but that is not what happens, but the trains are so loaded with luggage and passengers in silly Victorian outfits getting stuck together and stopping instead of getting off and separating them.

The machinists continue to bother more coal. until a large amount of energy builds up, eventually that energy becomes too much and everything breaks, the trains move away from each other, the sudden movement shakes their cars and causes a bunch of guys with monocles to fall on it in one fell swoop. very simplified way. shape and with added top hats is what is happening with the San Andreas fault in the 30 million years of its existence the two plates have moved 350 miles over each other but, apart from a relatively quiet section in the center from california, they have been doing it just like our trains in sudden bursts and each of these bursts means one thing and one thing only, earthquake time technically this is known as a strike-slip fault, it is less common than other types, but that doesn't It's what makes San Andrés so remarkable, the reason it keeps geologists up at night. at night can be summed up with a single worrying statistic: the vast majority of Californians live in the area around the fault which includes everyone in the everyone in San Francisco everyone in San Bernardino San Jose Santa Barbara and well, in some places you get the idea. cities have been built directly on top of it, the San Francisco Bay Area rapid transit system actually runs through a tunnel through the middle of the damn thing, all of this means that any earthquake caused by the San Andreas Fault has the potential to be devastating, like the one in 1994.

The Northridge earthquake caused by one of the secondary San Andreas faults hit the San Fernando Valley shortly after 4:30 a.m. m. with a magnitude of 6.7 on the Rich scale, it collapsed buildings, killed 57 people and caused around $20 billion in damage. It sounds pretty bad, well, just know this. The Northridge earthquake wasn't even close to being big, it was barely a hiccup in terms of what probable failure is capable of, like the difference between being stung by a horsefly and being eaten by a hungry bear for a glimpse. what it will be like when the san

andreas

really breaks we are going to have to go back in time to witness one of the worst natural disasters in united states history because california spent most of its history being sparsely populated we have to rely on geological studies to calculate it To find out its earthquake history, the US Geological Survey Agency has identified traces of a megaquake at the southern end of the fault, near Palm Springs, dating back about 300 years, but it is not until mid 18th century we get the first written records in 1769.

Gaspar de Portola led the first European expedition into the interior of California on July 28, when they were about 30 miles southeast of present-day Los Angeles, the ground beneath their feet suddenly turned into liquid as there were no buildings around that could collapse, this massive earthquake did little more than make Gaspar and his men close their eyes and wish with all their might that they had never joined this stupid expedition. The same cannot be said for the next one, some 90 years after the failure made Gasparda Portola shit his pants in fear. San Andrés unleashed another big one.

Today the city's fourth earthquake is believed to have been the most powerful in California history, estimated at a grade eight on the Richter scale. It completely tore the south of the state. A 225-mile-long gash was opened in the earth's surface. The waters of Tulare Lake were so splashed that its fish were found miles away the ground shook for several minutes at a time at the San Buenaventura mission the bell tower collapsed over the next few weeks strong aftershocks followed and until the following year aftershocks were still felt smaller ones it was simply a monster earthquake but it was also one of the least dangerous in recorded history one person was killed by falling debris the damage was slight because there was very little to damage California was simply too empty to suffer the strong earthquake until the Today is still the last big hit in Southern California, but Northern California is another matter, so let's jump to the early 20th century.

The San Andreas Fault has been identified and named by geologist A.C Lawson and people no longer blame the almighty Zeus every time the ground gets sadly shaky. Being forewarned does not always mean being prepared At 5:13 in the morning on April 18, 1906, the Pacific and North American tectonic plates shook, unleashing unimaginable seismic energy just off the coast of San Francisco, The impact of the slide was so great that people felt it as far away as Oregon, but it was those in the Bay Area who suffered the most. The earthquake toppled buildings and crushed people, but the real horrors came later, once the shaking stopped.

Fires broke out in San Francisco because the earthquake had destroyed existing water mains. the firefighters could hardly do anything at 7 in the morning the mayor had called in the army and given shoot-to-kill orders to deal with the looters by the afternoon the emergency services were dynamiting entire blocks of houses in a desperate attempt In the end, the San Francisco fire burned for five full days, more than three thousand people died, more than those who died on September 11. 28,000 buildings burned down, leaving more than a quarter of a million people homeless, this in a city that then had a full population. of just four hundred thousand could have been even worse, at one point twenty thousand people were trapped by flames at the end of van ness avenue, it was only a massive rescue operation by the navy that prevented the death toll reached historic levels, but while the The worst San Andreas Fault earthquake hit Northern California.

Actually, it's those in the south who should be worried before the 1906 earthquake. The north hadn't seen a big one since around 1300 AD, Southern California on average is hit by one every 110 to 230 years, no , your calculations are not wrong, that means that right now we are right in the middle of the period in which a new fortune earthquake would be expected, only this time there are millions more people to worry about, since the great earthquake of San Andrés could reasonably arrive at any point between this second and the 2080s, it is almost certain that we or our children will live to see it, if that is the case then we should probably ask ourselves what it will be like.

The first thing we must accept is that no one knows. Earthquake prediction is certainly a very shaky science, if you'll forgive the most obvious pun this channel has ever made, and it's hard to be sure of anything. The absolute nightmare scenario involves the entire San Andreas Fault rupturing once in its 800 miles. but even if this were to happen it may not be as bad as you imagine, there is a limit to the amount of energy any failure can unleash, a maximum level of earthquake it can reach before everything works. Well that's it. Even if the entire San Andreas Fault were to rupture at once, the maximum is estimated to be a magnitude 8.3 earthquake.

That's still pretty big. The earthquake that devastated San Francisco was 7.9 because the Richer scale is logarithmic. A 7.9 has the smallest fraction. The 1964 Alaska earthquake was a staggering 9.2, while in South America Chile once had an earthquake that registered a magnitude of 9.5, so the largest would be massive but not record-breaking and researchers believe it is highly unlikely that the entire fault would explode at once, much less It would likely be that only the southern section ruptured, in which case we would probably be looking at an earthquake that would measure around 7.8, nor would it. generate any of the side effects you probably expect, especially if you saw Dwayne Johnson's 2015 film imaginatively titled San Andreas, there would be no tsunamis that would wipe out the Golden Gate Bridge, there would be no instantaneous collapse of the Hoover Dam, no tremors would be felt in the east coast if you clicked on this video hoping to enjoy the graphic descriptions of the carnage.

You may be feeling quite disappointed right now. Well, wipe away those tears only because the really big one won't involve large-scale CGI destruction or the rock's bulging biceps won't. That doesn't mean it's not worthy of its own disaster movie. Back in 2008, scientists developed a model to determine what the major disaster would look like. They assumed the epicenter would be near the Coachella Valley, that it would hit during the day, and that it would register a 7.8 on the Richter scale, which they discovered. was that it would unleash a wave of destruction that would exceed even 1906. By the time the ground stopped shaking, everything the residents of Los Angeles hold dear would have been destroyed, but just short of everything.

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In the opening minutes, seismic waves radiate across the Golden State and strike deep into the heart of Los Angeles. Buildings built before 1980 under outdated building codes collapse, killing those inside them. Roads are damaged. Power and telephone lines are cut, water pipes burst, those on the streets are hit with broken glass or falling debris, others are thrown to the ground with enough force to break ribs and limbs, while the ground continues to shake for minutes straight, dozens of people throughout the city. They die and collapse in car accidents, others are buried alive, but the worst is what happens when the shaking stops before the earthquake has completely ended.

Fires have broken out in all urban areas near the epicenter. Broken gas lines contribute to explosions and more fires in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles alone, several hundred fires are burning now, as recent events have shown that fires can be a serious problem in California and multiple fires burning when emergency services only have limited access to the well, that's a recipe For disaster in the next few hours, those hundreds of smaller fires merge. in several very large ones, at best they burn down entire sections of Los Angeles, at worst, well, at worst things get really bad if the dry Santa Ana winds blow from inside.

Catastrophic wildfires could easily bring to mind the 2008 bonfire that wiped out the city. from paradise killing 85 people. Now imagine multiple bonfires breaking out across Southern California at a time when communication networks are largely down, roads are not passable and emergency services are already overwhelmed by the hundreds of dead in the earthquake, probably beginning Let's see how bad this could get, of course, it's possible that the Santa Ana winds won. It won't blow and the fires will remain contained for the most part, but even in the best-case scenario, the aftermath will still be a nightmare Once the main quake is over, aftershocks will continue to rock the state for several days or even weeks. a large one may become structurally unstable and cause severe housing shortages, while access to drinking water will have disappeared.

It is estimated that by the evening of that fateful day, 750 people in Los Angeles alone will be trapped in ruined buildings and another 270,000 will be evacuated. Left homeless, another 50,000 people will urgently need emergency care and may not arrive in time. Overall, it is estimated that search and rescue will continue for 19 days after the earthquake, during which time more people will die from falling debris. due to lack of treatment for their injuries, even from drinking contaminated tap water, by the time everything is back under control, at least 2,000 Angelenos will have died if the fires get out of control, that number will be even higher now that we start taking Take into account all the other urban areas close to the epicenter and seeing that couch of death go up would certainly be the worst natural disaster in California history for the survivors either would not be easy it is estimated that it could take up to a year to restore normal telecommunications electricity and drinking water a possible result could be a total collapse of the economy;

In effect, the shattered city would become a silent wasteland abandoned by those with nowhere else to go, haunted by those forced to remain while the Southern California region recovers. years for things to get even remotely back to normal, so there you have a realistic view of what the big volcano could really entail, sure it's not a Yellowstone supervolcano eruption, but it would still be a pretty terrible one-time disaster. life given. So there's one thing we should probably cover in this video: how to survive this seismic apocalypse. Ever since the talk of the Great San Andreas Earthquake, Southern California Public Radio has been running shows dedicated to surviving.

We had a scout on your file while we investigated this. video and came to a surprising conclusion, surviving might be easier than you would expect as long as you follow some basic rules, rule number one don't seriously run, just don't do it, while the St. Andrew's movie might have included people walking through shaking streets. trying to run on liquefied terrain is impossible. A large number of injuries in American earthquakes come from people trying to run outdoors and then breaking their legs when the ground holds them back. Oh, and if you had to go outside in an urban area. that would be a bad move, every window on the street would shatter and glass would spray everywhere, you might as well be lacerated.

Instead, most agencies recommend that you simply get down on the ground and stay still, and that qualifier mostly leads us to our next rule. and that's taking cover if there's something you can crawl under, that's because even a flimsy desk can protect you if the building collapses by creating an air pocket in the debris. Now you may have heard the common advice to take shelter in a door, but apparently, another of the most common earthquake injuries comes from people running towards their doors only to have the door hit them in the face. Better advice is to just get under an interior wall away from the windows and hold on, and use it. your hands to cover your head and neck with the big one, loose things will fly around your room fast enough to make you brain, lastly, once you're under your desk, be sure to remember rule number three, wait, there's no point diving in there like it's a budget.

Action hero only to be thrown back by the tremor, so you've already taken some basic steps to survive. How can you increase your chances even more? One idea is to make sure you always have bottled water under your desk if your building collapses - this is unlikely in modern California buildings, but not impossible - and you get trapped in an air pocket. You could be there for days. Imagine how horrible it would be to survive the great San Andrés only to die of dehydration. On a similar note, you should take note. Make sure you don't run out of oxygen.

One of the best ways to use up all your O2 is to start yelling. Instead, you must hit things to alert people to your presence. Finally, the last thing you can do is move on. your phone, as you probably remember from the last section, power will be out statewide, which means no wifi. What we didn't mention before is that cell phone towers have backup power, not much, it's only four hours, but that's four. The hours could be the difference between surviving the big disaster and becoming just another fatality statistic. Southern California Public Radio was pretty emphatic that you shouldn't dial 9-1-1 because everyone will dial 9-1-1 and you'll just spend those precious four hours on hold, instead they suggested texting Text to as many people as you can describing where you are and what injuries you have.

It sounds counterintuitive, but it's really your best bet: your friends and family who aren't buried alive will be. I can report your location and find you as soon as possible, oh, but in case you are one of those friends who is texted by a buried person, don't try to dig them up, don't look for people in damaged buildings. or enter the period of any building, that's because the aftershocks of the big earthquake will also be very big and it won't help anyone if it gets buried in a subsequent collapse, so the last important tip we found was not to drink tap water with all the pipes broken, nasty things could have gotten in like things that are nasty enough to kill you, stick with bottled water where you can and boil it for an age and a half when you can't in the case of the big disaster, it is estimated that the Tap water could remain undrinkable in Southern California for more than a year and a half, so that's it, so our complete guide to surviving the great San Andreas disaster and how much it will stink, and make no mistake, suck it.

If you're old enough to remember Hurricane Katrina, just know that the big one will eclipse it in terms of damage done and lasting impact, but what if you're not from California? You may wonder if you care or if you feel pretty. Smug about all this, don't be too complacent, although the San Andreas is the most famous fault in North America, there are many others, some are smaller and only capable of releasing a fraction of the energy, but others are capable of unleashing a big. just like san

andreas

one is even able to surpass it off the coast of the pacific northwest the cascadia subduction zone has been building up potential energy for centuries when it finally breaks it will be the big one to end all the big tsunamis will hit the west the coast it will level entire cities earthquakes will tear up the ground from Canada to California it will be so big it will make San Andreas look like child's play and there is a 1 in 10 chance of this happening in the next 50 years and that is where we are going to end up today, with not just one horrible glimpse of the near future, but two, each of which may well happen within our lifetimes.

Makes you think, doesn't it? It makes you realize how fragile our little human being is. The world is how easily everything could disappear as this video ends, just take a moment to think about how lucky you are to live in a world before these disasters, think about all the things and places around you and that you appreciate. and count your blessings because make no mistake the big ones are yet to come and when they finally arrive the lives of everyone in North America will be changed forever so I really hope you found the video interesting if so please hit the button approval below.

Don't forget to check out our fantastic sponsor Dollar Shave Club and as always, I'll see you next time.