Are you prepared for the next Big One?

Hoda Kotb Correspondent • Profile

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. - It’s just another quiet, routine day in Anchorage, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, San Francisco... or Memphis.  You could be just about anywhere in the country.

You’re at the office, at home, preparing dinner, sound asleep in bed, or just watching your kid’s basketball game. You’re just going about your daily routine and have no idea that actually, you are in grave danger. There’s no warning.  There’s nothing you can do and suddenly—the very ground beneath you begins to move wildly. It’s an earthquake.

In an instant, there’s terror.

The earth has unleashed one of its most primal, destructive forces.  And if you think it can’t happen to you—think again.

We’ve all seen the terrifying images from earthquakes in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Japan, Italy, and scores of places around the world, including the quake off Indonesia that triggered the devastating tsunami of 2004.

Mary Lou Zoback, U.S. Geological Survey: The risk is real.  It’s out there.  These are certainties.  There’s nothing we can do to stop earthquakes. 

Zoback of the U.S. Geological Survey has studied earthquakes for more than 30 years.

Zoback: Our intent is really not to scare people.  But to make people aware.

Everyone knows that the west coast and Alaska are at risk, but you might be surprised as we take you to at-risk sections of the country you might never think of—like the south, the Midwest, even the Northeast.

We are still so vulnerable.

With all our modern technology, we can’t predict earthquakes or make ourselves completely safe.

But there are some things we can do: This is a portable earthquake demonstration machine that teaches people here in California what to do in a earthquake.  On Dateline, we’ll give some simple tips to help you survive an earthquake.  Because someday, you might need them.

Few large American cities are more at risk than San Francisco. It’s one of the most beautiful and romantic places in the world.

But the clang of the cable cars could just as well be alarm bells.

The infamous San Andreas fault, seen here further south, lies just a few miles from downtown San Francisco.

Simon Winchester, author, “Crack in the Edge of the World”: If there was nothing in California at all and you were looking for a place to build a city, the place where you would NOT build it is where San Francisco is today, right on top of the San Andreas fault. Which has to be one of the most active and dangerous plate boundaries in the world. You just wouldn’t do it.  It’s far too dangerous.

The federal government says a big earthquake in Aan Francisco could have consequences far greater than anything we saw in New Orleans during Katrina.

In the Sunset District of the city’s west side, there are thousands of houses built in the 1940’s where the house rests on top of the garage.  Experts say that makes them especially vulnerable to quakes.

Recently, Dateline showed up at the home of Sunset area resident Richard Fritsch, who lives in that very type of house.

We showed up out of the blue, with no advance word.  Just the way an earthquake would.

And a great quake — magnitude 8.0 or higher—is never far from his mind.

Richard Fritsch, homeowner: I think about the big one coming. Because you always hear that, ‘the big one’s coming, the big one’s coming.’

Like many San Franciscans, Richard, his wife Kelly, and step-daughter Alexis are a bit unnerved at the chance of a devastating earthquake in their city.

Alexis Fritsch, daughter: Oh, I am scared, of course. I always think like, “Oh My God, what if one comes?” That is going to be horrible.

We’ll see how bad it could be. We offered the Fritsches a unique opportunity to literally rock their world.

Our plan: to show the Fritsches what might happen to a house similar to theirs in the event of a catastrophic quake.   Are their furnishings secured?   Are there precautions they can take?  Do they know what to do when the Big One hits?

Working with the University of California - Berkeley’s earthquake engineering research center, Dateline sponsored the building of a house structurally just like Fritsches’,  only smaller.

The furnishings in these two rooms approximate what the Fritsches have in their home.  

Don Clyde, UC Berkeley: This is a very real test. The objective here is to recreate real conditions.

U.c. Berkeley lab manager Don Clyde has run the apparatus called the “Shaking Table” for more than 20 years.

The ground motion that’s going to be used for this test will simulate the actual solid conditions that exist in the Sunset and Richmond districts.

So the Fritsches will get to see how their house holds up if the “big one” hits.

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