I talked to my father this morning about the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan. He's a retired structural engineer and designer of earthquake resistant structures and buildings worldwide. He was a consultant to Japanese electric energy companies during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and helped design Japanese power plants and buildings to resist earthquakes.
My dad also performed earthquake safety analysis of many notable structures including the Trans Alaskan Pipeline, the Bank of America building in San Francisco and the Tower Latina Americana -- the tallest building in Mexico City. He was a member of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and travelled around the world to evaluate the earthquake safety of virtually every nuclear power plant in the world.
He hasn't been to Japan in years and is, as I said, retired, but he had these comments on the quake this morning, and said I could share them here:
This was the fifth largest quake ever recorded, centered 230 miles offshore of NE Japan.
There is a very large fault there (Honshu Fault), and this fault has been very active for a long time. It was on this fault that the famous 1924 earthquake occurred that leveled every building in Tokyo except Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel. He became a god in Japan, but ironically never designed another building there.
Today's earthquake caused a lot of damage in Japan, but no damage elsewhere. The shaking was not the problem, because the earthquake center was so far offshore. However, water damage from the tsunami caused almost all of the problems, including fires when the oil storage tanks were overturned by the water surge and were ignited by an electrical short.
I grew up with a big earthquake fault map in my house, and my dad always used to come to school for "show and tell" on earthquakes -- a big deal given we lived in San Francisco!
Japan has very strict earthquake building regulations, but the quake, tsunami, and fires are so horrible that not even that has protected structures in affected areas. My heart goes out to the people of Japan, from one coast-dweller in quake country to others.
The Japanese Red Cross website was down for a while, and while it's back up, it has no information on how to donate to help in this disaster, nor any kind of "donate" button at all. The American Red Cross is being suggested as a place to donate, but they don't have any tsunami-specific donation system set-up. You can text “Red Cross” to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross, but there's no way to specify it's for tsunami/quake victims.
With news about this event flying all over social media, it's unbelievable to me that there is no coordinated response by anyone to harvest these dollars. I looked at the Red Cross Facebook page and they have nothing, no suggestions for how to help, zilch.
The world moves fast now, disaster relief agencies. One guy with a laptop and iPhone could handle all this for you if you empowered him to in advance. Think about it.
Update: A friend, Jon Dunn, just tipped me that Network for Good has a good place to donate for tsunami relief, and that he has a contact at the Red Cross who said today's texted donations will indeed be directed to that cause as well. Thanks, Jon!
Update 2: The American Red Cross has their dedicated donation option ready! Give here.
Photo: Me, my mom, and my dad, in 1960.
Yes, it is a shame but disaster coordination is always like that. Go figure.
Plus, the different agencies don't always work together. Then, in the USA at least, you have to have mutual aid agreements in place. It gets more complicated with international involvement but this is another illustration on just how important it is to prepare and to get the information on what your local channels are.
The one thing you can count on for sure is to expect the unexpected as no matter how much you prep, it never is enough it seems.
Thanks for posting the network info.
Posted by: Ark Lady | 11 March 2011 at 01:26 PM