Why Port-a-potties should remind us to prepare for the next earthquake

SALT LAKE CITY Imagine rows of Port A Potties in your area. Now, imagine having to run to one in a nightgown or pajamas in the middle of the night when needed, maybe with your kids and maybe needing to wait behind other neighbors – for months on end.

If people in the Salt Lake area are wondering the difference between the magnitude 5.7 earthquake they experienced last March and the 7.0 “great earthquake” that had been predicted, they need to bear that picture in mind.

Oh, and one more thing. Remember the number 140,000. This is an estimate of the number of buildings – homes and businesses – that have been constructed of unreinforced stone in the Salt Lake Valley. If Mother Nature is hit by a 7.0 earthquake force, it will use them as weapons against anyone inside.

Do you remember the earthquake that happened in March? In a normal year, that would be a silly question. But 2020 has been so full of disaster and turmoil that the impact of that earthquake may have pushed to the back of our memory banks.

The bigger question is whether state legislators and whoever elects a governor in November remember this, and whether they really start the process of preparing for the big event. If so, they could reduce what the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) predicts could be the death toll to 3,000, which could rival the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

5.7 We had in March did not change those expectations. Experts still say we have a 43% chance of experiencing an earthquake of magnitude 6.75 or higher over the next 50 years. Twenty-two earthquakes of 7.0 magnitude have struck the Wasatch front over the past 6,000 years, occurring every 300 years or so, on average. The last of them was, well, over 300 years ago.

It got these numbers from Envision Utah, a non-profit cooperative organization that, according to its website, looks to find “bottom-up decision making”. Three of its leaders met this week with the Deseret News and KSL editorial boards to talk about ongoing efforts to improve our “resilience to disasters”.

This is not the thing that humans enjoy talking about. If you are a politician, the tendency may be to believe the odds are good. If you are my age or older, you may agree. If I’ve been here for 50 years now it’s time to notify the Guinness Standard folks. Besides, there are days when the weather forecast predicts the probability of rain of 40% or more and the sun shines, right?

But if a major earthquake happened in the next 10 years or so, many people would be wondering why today’s politicians aren’t doing more, especially given the wake-up call last March.

One of the answers they might give is money. Our Envision Utah guests didn’t have firm figures on costs, except to say it could be higher than $ 10,000 to retrofit an unsupported home.

But lawmakers may take a few slow steps. They can set up a fund that pays a portion of the costs to eligible homeowners to support their stones. Local cities can take some steps, such as requiring a retrofit when someone seeks permission to add or remodel. They can prohibit construction in particularly vulnerable areas.

And they can start reinforcing the infrastructure, especially the water and sewage pipes, which are taking me back to those pots in the neighborhoods.

Experience shows that electricity can be restored within one to three months of a major earthquake, that water service takes much longer, and sanitation service takes two to three times more than that.

A decade ago, two major earthquakes, one of magnitude 7.1 and next 6.3, struck Christchurch, New Zealand, within a few months. The last earthquake occurred in February 2011. Press reports at the time reported that about 30 gates, as they were called, were still in use in November 2012, after 21 months. This was down from about 3,000 at the peak, which lasted for a while.

This is a lot of inconvenience. Lots of running down the street, either by yourself or with young children, that might be reduced by a little bit now.

If we learn anything from a year of pandemic, wildfires, and unrest, a little planning today can save a lot of expense and suffering later.

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