With news of a 6.0 magnitude earthquake today in San Francisco, I thought I'd provide a perspective on historical damage, The data in the table below are estimates of normalized damage for the top
There are a lot of uncertainties in earthquake normalization methods, and those interested in digging deeper should have a look at our paper for the gory details. The top event is the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which reminds us that while big earthquakes are rare, they can do lots of damage. For perspective, a repeat of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake could cause more than twice the damage caused by all US tornadoes since 1950.
| Rank | Date | Normalized 2014 Damage | Deaths | Magnitude | Location |
| 1 | 18-Apr-06 | $345,207,435,386 | 2000 | 8.3 | San Francisco |
| 2 | 28-Mar-64 | $38,910,888,527 | 131 | 8.4 | Anchorage, Alaska |
| 3 | 18-Oct-89 | $37,521,623,532 | 62 | 7.1 | California, Loma Prieta |
| 4 | 17-Jan-94 | $37,046,374,369 | 60 | 6.6 | Los Angeles |
| 5 | 11-Mar-33 | $19,340,807,766 | 100 | 6.3 | California, Long Beach |
| 6 | 13-Apr-49 | $11,078,046,116 | 8 | 7.0 | Olympia, Washington |
| 7 | 18-May-80 | $9,495,474,795 | 31 | 5.2 | Washington, Mt St. Helens |
| 8 | 9-Feb-71 | $9,197,179,695 | 65 | 6.5 | California, San Fernando |
| 9 | 28-Feb-01 | $6,024,383,136 | 0 | 6.8 | Washingotn, Olympia |
| 10 | 11-Oct-18 | $5,670,099,871 | 116 | 7.5 | Puerto Rico |
| 11 | 19-May-40 | $5,036,397,660 | 9 | 6.5 | Imperial Valley (California) |
| 12 | 21-Jul-52 | $4,116,494,364 | 13 | 7.7 | Central Calfornia |
| 13 | 19-Oct-35 | $3,989,310,216 | 2 | 6.2 | Montana |
| 14 | 29-Jun-25 | $3,729,835,249 | 13 | 6.3 | Santa Barbara (California) |
Loma Prieta is listed twice, as #3 and #6. That's the first quake I looked for in the list since I'm typing this about 10 miles from the Loma Prieta epicenter.
ReplyDeleteHow do you account for all the money spent on stronger infrastructure, earthquake-resistant buildings, etc?
ReplyDeleteIt appears that picking which area to use for population normalization can be tricky.
ReplyDeleteI notice that in your 2009 paper that you used a special CSA of Santa Clara county + SF County to normalize the 4/24/84 Morgan Hill earthquake. I assume that is because, like with the Loma Prieta earthquake, there wasn't much damage in San Mateo county which is located between Santa Clara and SF County. I guess it does make sense to ignore population changes in counties that have little damage even though they are closer to the epicenter than more distant areas that have lots of damage due to things like soil liquification.
Loma Prieta epicenter was on the border between Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, on the extreme south end of the Bay Area. Santa Clara county is part of SF CSA but Santa Cruz county is not. So using SF CSA to normalize Loma Prieta is a bit strange. As with the Morgan Hill earthquake, a reasonable argument could be made for using a special CSA that excludes places like San Mateo county that is closer to the epicenter but didn't have extensive damage caused by soil liquification that happened in San Francisco and Oakland.
Why is the Loma Prieta 3rd and 6th?
ReplyDeleteCharlie, Patrick: Thanks for the eagle eyes. Now fixed .. RP
ReplyDeleteI was puzzled by a couple of entries here:
ReplyDeleteYou predict that a magnitude 5.2 quake in Mt. St. Helens, WA would cause almost 60% more damage than a magnitude 6.8 quake in Olympia. I found the latter very surprising given the much greater population density around Olympia than around Mt. St. Helens and the 30-fold greater energy release in the Olympia earthquake.
Similarly, but less dramatically, you predict that a magnitude 6.2 quake in Montana would cause about 7% more damage than a magnitude 6.3 quake in Santa Barbara CA, which generally has denser and more expensive buildings.
When I see the location column with a seemingly random syntax: city, state; state, city; country, or just city. I really worry about the accuracy of the compiled list!
ReplyDeleteIt would be helpful to enter the full year, not the last two digits, since there are 3 different centuries possible (1800's. 1900's, 2000's). I don't know if one of the listed are 1800's due to this omission.
ReplyDeleteI also am unclear by Mt.St. Helens, WA. Was the damage and death due to the earthquake, or the Volcanoes pyroclastic flow, ash, and flooding due to melted cap?
ReplyDelete