6.0 Salt Lake.-area quake would take moderate toll
A 7.0 temblor could kill 6,200 Utahns and injure 90,000
Still, that damage is only considered moderate. A bigger 7.0 or so quake — which experts have said has about a 1 in 5 chance of hitting the Wasatch Front in the next 50 years — could kill up to 6,200 Utahns, injure 90,000 more, at least moderately damage 42 percent of all local buildings and cause $40 billion in economic losses.
"It all depends on when an earthquake hits and where, and the size," said Bob Carey, the earthquake preparedness director for the Utah Division of Homeland Security, who has performed computer modeling of likely damage from different sizes of quakes here.
Carey said a 6.0 in Salt Lake County would likely cause "some loss of life, but it would be minimal" depending on the time of day it hit. "If it happens at night when people are home and asleep, it would be less of a problem" than if people are at work or school.
"It's a recognized problem, but it's also a funding issue. You can only go as fast (to upgrade schools) as funding allows you to," Carey said.
Of note, just an hour or so after the Nevada quake hit on Thursday, the Utah Legislature's House Government Operations Committee endorsed a bill to require schools to conduct seismic evaluations of their buildings that could lead to fixing the most needy buildings first.
Carey said most structural collapses and serious damage would occur relatively near the epicenter of a 6.0 quake. But "non-structural" damage could occur far from it.
For example, Carey said, "With some of the older buildings downtown, I would expect to see their decorative cornices have problems. You may see some failure there. You will definitely see parapet damage from this. With that parapet damage, you always see partial wall failure."
A parapet is a low wall along the edge of a roof or balcony.
He adds that damage may be seen on higher floors of buildings because swaying is more severe there.
Carey said he also would expect some water and sewer lines to be knocked out because the lines tend to be brittle and break with shaking. He adds he would expect some power blackouts. "Power is pretty delicate," he said. "If it does go down, they'll leave it down for a time to make sure they don't damage it by bringing it back up."
Recent comments
We are lucky no one was seriously injured in this last quake.
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Jason | Feb. 22, 2008 at 8:36 a.m.
