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Why the Hayward Fault is the focus of the debate about housing targets versus earthquake risk
The great rift that runs through Fremont’s former city hall is a stark symbol of the dangers and realities of living in quake country–and the powerful forces lurking beneath our feet in the Bay Area.
The building in the southeast corner of Central Park in Fremont is a nondescript, one-story brown structure. It’s unremarkable, except in one way: Fremont’s old town hall, now a community center, was built over the Hayward Rift.
“I grew up in Hayward, so this was always on my mind,” said Monica Esceda, an employee of MS Nucleus, a local science resource nonprofit with access to the building. “But I certainly don’t think people are ready.”
Geologist Monica Esceda looks at a large crack in the floor of a building in Central Park caused by the Hayward Fault on Tuesday, June 6, 2023, in Fremont, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
In a situation where the threat of earthquakes is so constant that it sometimes seems banal, this crack, slowly demolishing an ancient building, is a vivid reminder of the ticking graveyard below East Bay. However, more than half a century after its construction, new housing projects are being built only a few tens of meters from this fault and other seismic-risk areas.
The Hayward Fault, a powerful slip fault capable of generating catastrophic earthquakes, is one of the most studied faults in the world. It runs along the eastern bay, extending from San Jose to San Pablo Bay. According to scientists, major earthquakes occur on it every 100-200 years, and the last of them has been happening for 150 years. Scientists say the “big man” is due.
With the likelihood of a major earthquake increasing, statistically speaking, with each passing year, some residents and geologists worry that civic leaders and developers are ignoring hard lessons from geological history. These lessons—exemplified by the crack that ripped through the city’s former nerve center—are as relevant today as they were 50 years ago.
But in the context of the housing development push, some question how much we’ve really learned and whether the new developments will put future generations of Bay Area residents in harm’s way.
In Alameda, new apartment buildings are under construction on reclaimed land in the Esala areas. In Fremont, high-rise apartments are being built only 50 feet from a fault line, which is the minimum distance required by the state. In San Francisco, new plans will place the majority of affordable housing projects in earthquake-risk areas.
“It’s the money, it’s the greed,” said Joyce Bluford, a geologist and founder of MS Nucleus. “The builders will be gone for a long time, but the people who live inside them will suffer.”
The potential risks of building in these areas—the liquefaction zones close to the fault—are clear. Five years ago, the USGS released the first fact sheet for a study, known as the “High Wired Scenario,” detailing a series of cascading, catastrophic, and interconnected effects of a magnitude 7.0 earthquake on the Hayward Fault.
Construction of a new apartment building on Osgood Road near the Hayward Fault on Tuesday, June 6, 2023, in Fremont, Calif. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group)
According to the study, hundreds of thousands of East Bay residents will be displaced by uninhabitable homes or neighborhoods. Millions of people will lose access to water. In the first six months, property damage, utility outages and cascading effects through supply chains will result in $44 billion in losses – 4% of California’s economy. The regional economy is likely to plunge into a recession that will last at least five years. In Alameda County alone, 15% of people lose their jobs.
According to Anne Wein, an operations research analyst with USGS, East Bay cities have updated their level of preparedness since the report was released. In the five years since it was published, many cities have implemented elements of the HayWired scenario into their local risk mitigation plans.
“Urban planners may not think that risk management is their ultimate focus,” Wen said. “The relationships between emergency response managers and planners — those are the things we want to try to bring together. Trying to help people communicate and why it’s important that they need to.”
Long before the HayWired scenario, the region was already taking steps to address earthquake risk. Since the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, which killed 63 people and injured thousands more, up to $50 billion has been invested in strengthening infrastructure in the East Bay.
But Wen conceded there was still more work to be done. The East Bay jurisdictions have been outspent by San Francisco on a per capita basis. Per capita, San Francisco’s investment is more than four times that of Alameda, Contra Costa, and Santa Clara counties — though it may suffer more damage. The East Bay also has a series of “old vulnerabilities,” older homes built on or near a fault or in liquefaction areas before scientists understood the risks. Ironically, many of these homes were built after many people moved to the East Bay in response to the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.
Although the HayWired report provided a comprehensive account of a catastrophic earthquake, the study itself was a scientific assessment—not a series of policy recommendations or actionable requirements.
“The USGS can’t do anything with politics,” Wynn said. “You have to keep telling the story in different ways.”
Moving forward, the question is whether this story resonates and whether the developers and city leaders who approved the developments adequately incorporated risk into their visions.
Part of the challenge is translating the significance of the HayWired scenario to the wider public, said Mark Benteen, executive director of the National Earthquake Alliance statewide.
“There is the factor of human nature,” Benteen said. “We rule out the risks and say it will happen somewhere else or to someone else. That’s how we all get out of bed every morning.”
In Benthine’s view, an informed public would be more prepared for a catastrophic earthquake on an individual level — such as having contingency plans and preparing supplies. His group has created toolkits that provide concrete steps people in the East Bay can take to prepare for earthquakes and consider the risks. Compared to other regions, the Bay Area has a series of laws and regulations that protect the residents from the worst consequences of earthquakes.
“It’s just a compromise, really, to live and have a large population like us,” Benteen said. “Strong shaking can happen near the fault and far away from the fault, but we’re not going to block every building in the Bay Area.”
But at least for Blueford, there are some compromises that shouldn’t be made, including building developments directly along a fault line where the ground is likely to slope during a major earthquake.
“One side can go up four or five feet, and the other can go up proportionately,” Bluford said. “If you had a building near something like that, the center of gravity would take over. Tell me that wouldn’t topple a building.”
According to Esqueda, a recent graduate of the California State University, East Bay geology program, the old Fremont City Hall building will eventually collapse. But when that happens, no one will live inside there. For now, the room with the crack in it has been turned into an earthquake exhibit—a large map of the fault running through the east bay adorns one wall, and informational panels line the crack. It is, in Bluford’s view, the most effective way to keep people safe moving forward.
“Education is the best we can do,” Bluford said. “We are all getting old. We may not be here when the big one comes. But he will.”
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