After The Big One: Can You Imagine America Without Los Angeles?
In a strange paradox, the San Andreas produces only big earthquakes because it is what seismologists consider a “weak” fault. The motion of that ripple across the “rug” of the San Andreas Fault creates the seismic energy that we experience as an earthquake. Some people think that modern technology has solved much of the fire problem because the two big California earthquakes of the late twentieth century, the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco and the 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles, did not lead to devastating fire
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