You ain't seen nothing yet!

On the other coast, California’s coming catastrophes may make the Gulf Coast’s Katrina catastrophe look comparatively tame. Big earthquakes are predicted, as are big floods from levee breaks.

“With more than 300 faults beneath Southern California, and the giant San Andreas fault running through the state, California is a seismic time bomb. A magnitude 7 quake has a 62% chance of hitting San Francisco in the next 30 years, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS); the risk for L.A. is only slightly less.” So reports Business Week’s cover story on September 19.

Compared to the now likely (but difficult to know until searches are complete) death toll of about a thousand from Katrina, Business Week continues: “Such a powerful quake would cause far more damage than the temblors that shook San Francisco in 1989 or L.A.'s Northridge neighborhood in 1994. A magnitude 7 quake that struck during a workday on a recently discovered fault under L.A. would kill 7,000 to 18,000 people, says the USGS. In San Francisco, 5,800 people would die if a temblor the size of the 1906 quake again savaged the city.”

Compared to the $150 billion estimate of damages along the Gulf Coast, “All told, if the quake hit directly below L.A., the damage could top $250 billion, a USGS study predicted.” A similar magnitude of damages could occur in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Although there are some improvements in earthquake prediction, they are nowhere close to the accuracy or days of warning from tracking a hurricane. Time to evacuate is not a reasonable expectation, nor is hiding in the attic from encroaching floodwaters an option.

Building codes have been upgraded for schools and hospitals. However, an inventory in 2002 by the California architect’s office found over 20% of the schools surveyed still “not guaranteed” to withstand future earthquakes. California isn’t asleep at the switch. The state is spending about $10 billion for hospital retrofits. Voters approved $25 billion in new bonds, part going to help make schools more quake-resistant. Still more is needed.

On September 4, I wrote about the comparable danger in California’s central valley from levee failure, as in New Orleans.

About 22-million Californians depend on the water that flows from its delta. There are hundreds of thousands of people living on low land who could be flooded by levee overflows or breaks. As USA Today reminds us, “Much of the delta was filled in a century ago for farming.” Since, much of that farmland has been turned into housing tracts. “The state looks after 1,600 miles of levees that protect at least a half-million people.” For example, “in 1997, more than 50 California levees broke on rain-choked rivers and killed eight people, forced the evacuation of 100,000 and damaged or destroyed 24,000 homes.” Yet, last January’s report by the State Department of Water Resources says levee maintenance funds have declined from Washington and Sacramento.

As the director of the California water resources departments points out, “it’s an old, aging system that instead of protecting farmland is actually protecting small cities, levees of questionable integrity protecting higher value real estate.”

Technology is becoming available to determine the internal strength of levees and determine measures to strengthen them.

California’s legislators have not been idle. Senator Feinstein and Congressman Pombo last year sponsored an approved authorization of $90-million to shore up the levees and now want the funding released, plus more to be devoted. Before Katrina, Sacramento legislators introduced bills to study the levees further and warn property owners of their flood risks, which did not find sufficient backing to pass. Katrina is the wake-up call.

Congress has already authorized over $63-billion for Gulf Coast relief from Katrina, and another like amount is expected. Principles of insurance require self-responsibility and to commit adequate funds to both prevention and to pooled risks. Several billion dollars should be earmarked to California quake and flood damage prevention measures, matching funds increased for other states to increase their preventions, and a national requirement imposed for property owners in flood plains to buy federal flood insurance.