Earthquake Safety

I thought each week in April we could focus on earthquake safety. This week to start us off, I wanted to give you all of the info you need to know about earthquakes and Utah. Not meant to scare you entirely, just prepare you. First of all, if you are curious about why Utah is overdue for an earthquake, check out this video on Utube done by geology.utah.gov. It shows an arial view of the valley explaining the fault lines across the wasatch front. Here is the info we were taught in CERT training. Also found at at Deseret News archive. If Utah was to have a 7.0 earthquake this is what we could expect:

-90,000 people injured
-up to 6,200 people dead
-42% of local buildings moderately damaged
-older bridges on I-15 will collapse
-280,000 homes will be without utilities
-East and west corridors for travel distrupted by damage
-$40 billion dollars in economic losses

There are a lot of things we need to prepare for not only for the quake itself but our economy afterwards. If our families survive we will have to plan on surviving in a community that has literally been ripped apart. This month I will focus on different aspects of earthquakes and hopefully get all of us to feel a bit more prepared. We can't live in fear of bad things happening, but we can prepare ourselves to be ready when they do happen!