] BIG earthquakes occur infrequently, but when they do they ] usually come unexpectedly and with horrendous power. It ] is, of course, dangerous to live in an earthquake-prone ] area, but what area in the world can we say is ] earthquake-safe? Surely the people in the Mississippi ] Valley feel they are safe, as do the people in New York ] City. Yet, New York has a fault line going across 125th ] Street that I would guess 99 percent of the city's ] population does not know about. ] ] ] And even if they did, they would likely be no more ] concerned about it than they are about La Palma. ] Americans have always lived in dangerous places - on the ] flat cyclone fields of the Midwest, on the hurricane ] battered coasts of Florida, on the flood plains of the ] South. We live in these places because we are uncertain ] about the time and place of the next disaster, and we are ] an adventurous culture. We believe that lightning never ] strikes twice in the same place, despite the many times ] it has. [ I guess the point is, prepare for the worst... -k] When Nature's Wrath Is History's Reminder |