Have we learned anything?

I believe it was Ben Franklin who said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." With the centennial anniversary of the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco approaching and New Orleans and the surrounding area still devastated I began to wonder what we have actually done to make sure we are more prepared than we were in 1906 and 2005.

Most Californians don't have earthquake insurance. I have personal reasons for not debating whether they should or should not. Even if I were to debate it, insurance is something you cannot always predict a need for. Typically you "need" insurance when an unexpected event occurs, or when you are obligated to purchase it by a contract or law. According to a recent Reuters article, "Were a temblor similar to the 1906 earthquake to strike the area there would be estimated insured property losses of $80 billion and total property losses would top $300 billion". That leaves $220 billion to be picked up by individuals, companies, government and charities. Can we handle a crisis of that scale?

The San Francisco bay area is not the only issue. Los Angeles is the number one port in the nation in total foreign trade value
(http://www.aapa-ports.org/pdf/2003_US_PORT_RANKINGS_BY_CARGO_VALUE.xls).
If that isn't enough, Long Beach is number three. A quake on the scale of the 1906 quake near those ports would be equally if not more devastating than the same scale of quake in the Bay Area. The traffic could be rerouted to Oakland, Tacoma, Seattle, Portland and San Diego. That would suffice if all of those ports could handle greater than three times the traffic they currently have, the next closest port in the top twenty is New Orleans. I doubt New Orleans can handle a massive increase in traffic at this time.

When the next big quake hits L.A. or the Bay Area, the media will blame the current political administration. That's the way it works. The blame really falls on us, the citizens. We can force the politicians to make it a priority, or we can choose not to. We can prepare individually for the inevitable, or we can choose not to.