How earthquake scientists solved the mystery of the last Big One in the Pacific Northwest canadiangeographic.ca - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from canadiangeographic.ca Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
CBC Victoria’s Gregor Craigie, host of
On the Island, has long been fascinated with the impending “Big One” due for western North America. During his career, he’s interviewed everyone to do with earthquakes: seismologists, engineers, geophysicists, survivors, emergency planners and more. His new book
On Borrowed Time, out in late September, revisits the quakes that came and the quakes to come.
One threat that Craigie exposes? Our own unpreparedness.
Take B.C.’s legislature building. Engineers have deemed it especially vulnerable in a major quake, its giant dome and stone walls at risk of collapse. “[T]he only politicians who ever talked publicly about fixing the building were the ones I asked directly,” writes Craigie. “And all of them, no matter their political affiliation, seemed to speak from the same script: it would not be acceptable, they repeated, to fix this building when so many schools and other public structures remain vulnerable.”