>> hi. welcome to san francisco. stay safe and exploring how you can stay in your home safely after an earthquake. let's look at common earthquake myths. >> we are here at the urban

center on mission street in san francisco. we have 3 guest today. we have david constructional engineer and bill harvey. i want to talk about urban myths. what do you think about earthquakes, can you tell if they are coming in advance? >> he's sleeping during those earthquakes? >> have you noticed him take any special? >> no. he sleeps right through them. there is no truth that i'm aware of with harvey that dogs are aware of an impending earthquake. >> you hear the myth all the time. suppose the dog helps you get up, is it going to help you do something >> i hear they are aware of small vibrations. but yes, i

read extensively that dogs cannot realize earthquakes. >> today is a spectacular day in san francisco and sometimes people would say this is earthquake weather. is this earthquake weather? >> no. not that i have heard of. no such thing. >> there is no such thing. >> we are talking about the weather in a daily or weekly cycle. there is no relationship. i have heard it's hot or cold weather or rain. i'm not sure which is the myth. >> how about time of day? >> yes. it happens when it's least convenient. when it happens people say we were lucky and when they don't. it's terrible timing. it's never a good time for an earthquake.

>> but we are going to have one. >> how about the ground swallowing people into the ground? >> like the earth that collapsed? it's not like the tv shows. >> the earth does move and it bumps up and you get a ground fracture but it's not something that opens up and sucks you up into haddes. >> it's not going anywhere. we are going to have a lot of damage, but this myth that california is going to the ocean is not real.

>> southern california is moving north. it's coming up from the south to the north. >> you would have to invest the million year cycle, not weeks or years. maybe millions of years from now, part of los angeles will be in the bay area. >> for better or worse. >> yes. >> this is a tough question. >> those other ones weren't tough. >> this is a really easy challenge. are the smaller ones less stress? >> yes. the amount released in small earthquakes is that they are so small in you need many of those. >> i think would you probably have to have maybe hundreds of magnitude earthquakes of 4.7.

>> so small earthquakes are not making our lives better in the future? >> not anyway that you can count on. >> i have heard that buildings in san francisco are on rollers and isolated? >> it's not true. it's a conventional foundation like almost all the circumstances buildings in san francisco. >> the trans-america was built way before. it's a pretty conventional foundation design. >> i have heard about this thing called the triangle of life and up you are supposed to go to the edge of your bed to save yourself. is there anything of value to that ? >> yes, if you are in your room. you should drop, cover

and hold onto something. if you are in school, same thing, kitchen same thing. if you happen to be in your bed, and you rollover your bed, it's not a bad place to be. >> the reality is when we have a major earthquake the ground shaking so pronounced that you are not going to be able to get up and go anywhere. you are pretty much staying where you are when that earthquake hits. you are not going to be able to stand up and run with gravity. >> you want to get under the door frame but you are not moving to great distances. >> where can i buy a richter scale? >> mr. richter is selling it. we are going to put a plug in for cold hardware. they are not available. it's a rather complex. >> in fact we don't even use the richter scale anymore. we

use a moment magnitude. the richter scale was early technology. >> probably a myth that i hear most often is my building is just fine in the loma prieta earthquake so everything is fine. is that true ? >> loma prieta was different. the ground acceleration here was quite moderate and the duration was moderate. so anyone that believes they survived a big earthquake and their building has been tested is sadly mistaken. >> we are planning for the bigger earthquake closer to san francisco and a fault totally independent. >> much stronger than the loma prieta earthquake. >> so people who were here in

'89 they should say 3 times as strong and twice as long and that will give them more of an occasion of the earthquake we would have. 10 percent isn't really the threshold of damage. when you triple it you cross that line. it's much more damage in earthquake. >> i want to thank you, harvey, thanks pat for >> hi today we have a special edition of building san francisco, stay safe, what we are going to be talking about san francisco's earth quakes, what you can do before an earthquake in your home, to be ready and after an earthquake to make sure that you are comfortable staying at home, while the city recovers. ♪

>> the next episode of stay safe, we have alicia johnson from san francisco's department of emergency management. hi, alicia thanks to coming >> it is a pleasure to be here with you. >> i wonder if you could tell us what you think people can do to get ready for what we know is a coming earthquake in san francisco. >> well, one of the most things that people can do is to make sure that you have a plan to communicate with people who live both in and out of state. having an out of state contact, to call, text or post on your social network is really important and being able to know how you are going to communicate with your friends, and family who live near you, where you might meet them if your home is uninhab hitable. >> how long do you think that

it will be before things are restored to normal in san francisco. >> it depends on the severity of the earthquake, we say to provide for 72 hours tha, is three days, and it helps to know that you might be without services for up to a week or more, depending on how heavy the shaking is and how many after shocks we have. >> what kind of neighborhood and community involvement might you want to have before an earthquake to make sure that you are going to able to have the support that you need. >> it is important to have a good relationship with your neighbors and your community. go to those community events, shop at local businesses, have a reciprocal relationship with them so that you know how to take care of yourself and who you can rely on and who can take care of you. it is important to have a battery-operated radio in your home so that you can keep track of what is happening in the community around and how you can communicate with other people. >> one of the things that seems important is to have access to your important documents.

>> yes, it is important to have copies of those and also stored them remotely. so a title to a home, a passport, a driver's license, any type of medical records that you need need, back those up or put them on a remote drive or store them on the cloud, the same is true with any vital information on your computer. back that up and have that on a cloud in case your hard drive does not work any more. >> in your home you should be prepared as well. >> absolutely. >> let's take a look at the kinds of things that you might want to have in your home. >> we have no water, what are we going to do about water? >> it is important for have extra water in your house, you want to have bottled water or a five gallon container of water able to use on a regular basis, both for bathing and cooking as well as for drinking. >> we have this big container and also in people's homes they have a hot water heater. >> absolutely, if you clean

your hot water heater out regularly you can use that for showering, drinking and bathing as well >> what other things do people need to have aren't their home. >> it is important to have extra every day items buy a couple extra cans of can food that you can eat without any preparation. >> here is a giant can of green giant canned corn. and this, a manual can opener, your electric can opener will not be working not only to have one but to know where to find it in your kitchen. >> yes. >> so in addition to canned goods, we are going to have fresh food and you have to preserve that and i know that we have an ice chest. >> having an ice chest on hand is really important because your refrigerator will not be working right away. it is important to have somebody else that can store cold foods so something that you might be able to take with you if you have to leave your home. >> and here, this is my very own personal emergency supply

box for my house. >> i hope that you have an alternative one at home. >> oh, i forgot. >> and in this is really important, you should have flashlights that have batteries, fresh batteries or hand crank flashlight. >> i have them right here. >> good. excellent. that is great. additionally, you are going to want to have candles a whistle, possibly a compass as well. markers if you want to label things if you need to, to people that you are safe in your home or that you have left your home. >> i am okay and i will meet you at... >> exactly. exactly. water proof matches are a great thing to have as well. >> we have matches here. and my spare glasses. >> and your spare glasses. >> if you have medication, you should keep it with you or have access to it. if it needs to be refrigerated make sure that it is in your ice box. >> inside, just to point out for you, we have spare batteries. >> very important.

>> we have a little first aid kit. >> and lots of different kinds of batteries. and another spare flashlight. >> so, alicia what else can we do to prepare our homes for an earthquake so we don't have damage? >> one of the most important things that you can do is to secure your valuable and breakable items. make sure that your tv is strapped down to your entertainment cabinet or wall so it does not move. also important is to make sure that your book case is secure to the wall so that it does not fall over and your valuable and breakables do not break on the ground. becoming prepared is not that difficult. taking care of your home, making sure that you have a few extra every-day items on hand helps to make the difference. >> that contributes dramatically to the way that the city as a whole can recover. >> absolutely. >> if you are able to control your own environment and house and recovery and your neighbors are doing the same the city as a whole will be a more

resilient city. >> we are all proud of living in san francisco and being prepared helps us stay here. >> so, thank you so much for joining us today, alicia, i appreciate it. >> absolutely, it is my pleasure. >> and thank you for joining us on another edition of building ... >> i am the chief building inspector. we are here at the base of

telegraph hill to talk about a subject of great interest for the people of san francisco which is rockslide, slope stability, which caused a dramatic front-page news. i am here with two knowledgeable and wonderful guests. i am here with a geotechnical engineer and a geologist. we are here to talk about rockslide, rockfalls, and related issues. what is the difference between a geologist and a geotechnical engineer? >> and engineering geologist deals with identifying site characteristics, mapping, the ground's surface, collecting all of this data. the engineer can come up with medications and designs.

>> the structural engineer might be working on a building if there is a building involved. what is your role? >> i am interested in the physical properties of the earth and how the earth will behave: subject to different load changes. when you are building a building, you are applying a load and you are wondering if the earth will be able to supply that load. we work closely together and we come up with practical engineering solutions. >> this is when someone wants to build something. also, we have a rock piece of land. we have to have a resolution. >> in the u.s., about 2/3 of the population lives in areas that

are prone to landslides. about $2 billion of damage occurs annually from landslides. unfortunately, 20-25 million people die as a result of landslides o. >> much of the coastline is either a bright red or a beige print th. >> here we are at the base of telegraph hill on lombard street. this is owned by the city. behind you is a large piece of something exposed. you are looking at a large class that was xextricated in a quarry about hundred years ago. this is a secretive sandstones,

shales, accumulated debris. essentially it ended up piled up here. the quarry activity was so intense and they used some much at dynamite that the kind of over blasted. 10 feet of the face was left shattered. you can see the fresh colors and a pile of debris which is precariously perched on the edge of a cliff up there. it is more fresh and more recent than the rest. it stands out because there's no vegetation. there is no weathering of material. those are the kinds of things you look for. >> there are many types of slides. there is the bedrock slides which we are looking at in is a combination of a block slide and where the material is just out of balance and is falling off.

rainfall pushes from the ground water and out of the cliff. as you can see, the slides artistic one of many types of landslides or slope failures. >> do we have all of these kind of failures in san francisco? >> unfortunately, we have them all. the rock from here is used from the sea wall. it came from this hill. it was a itgnoll that was present. because of this blasting that occurred, the rock is weak. while most of the time, there are times of heavy rain. sometimes, this has nothing to

do with the rainfall. iraq is 50 to an old and then it just falls. in this particular area where we're standing, we have seen the wall at the base. >> the big steel beams with the fence. this is an effective way of preventing the rock that does fall from causing damage. that might protect the bottom of the hill but it doesn't do anything over the hill. >> it has long been my understanding that the city of san francisco says and the building department takes this position that there is no one buildable lot -- unbuildable lot. i wonder if this is realistic.

>> if money is an issue, we can develop solutions that will mitigate the impact. that a solution can be eliminating the hill, that can eliminate the problem. or build a structure right into the hill so there is no longer an exposed face or bold enough of iraq together so that it acts as a big buttress to prevent further movement. -- or hold enough of the rock together so that it acts as a big buttress. we are allowing the wall of the building to act as a retaining structure. there was a time when we did not get any. there was an epic one before in 1982. we brought with us and rainfall charge. >> you were saying that this is somehow correlated to rainfall.

this goes from 1914 until 2006. it is the red line in the backgrounds which are the annual rainfall from each year is plotted on here. you can see it varies all over the place. if you take an average, the average is a thin gray line. that does not give you a feel for what the rainfall really is. that is an average over four years. you can see that these build up until we had the big events before. >> you expect to see them during the apocrine fall. in fact, they might occur at that time but they may occur the year after and two years after because it has taken awhile for it to accumulate.

this triggered some major landslides that we saw. these are portions of the cliff rotates out to sea. >> when we look at this cliff, can you tell us what of the features that we can see? >> we are lucky to have a very fresh exposure. there is a large overhanging block. at the very edge, you can see the roots coming out. they are part of the problem. in addition, these are sandstone and shale. they have been uplifted and faulted and put into the position they are in today. on the cliff face, you can see the bedding of the shale.

there are vertical cracks that filled the water and plans is growing. -- and plants are growing. the cumulative effect of the fresh cut with the debris sitting on the ledge, luckily we have a chance there to protect us from rocks going on the street. >> this is one type of rock salt and we will look at a few others. what will we see? >> i think it would be appropriate. we have been talking about rock salt. there is instability that occurs at telegraph hill. this was more in the earth flow

and debris flow kind of movement. this moves downhill as a result of the rations from the earthquake. that is where we are headed next. >> here we are on the next stop of our landslide for parent though this is the lagoon ouna a area. this is different from where we all were just add on telegraph hill. this is a whole different concept. tell us what we have to. we have the big hill behind us, what kind of formations do we have? >> this part of san francisco, we are out in the dune sands which makes up the hill to my right. a crusty old drainage that we are standing is bedrock, 160

million year-old sandstone. the project right in the hillside over there and then farther down along the path that goes to the reservoir. >> there are rock slides, there is unconsolidated material. we have an earth float type slide and a debris flows which are common on the these hillsides where you start to see the evidence of creaks when the trees start to lean over. >> this is a slow movement of the slope. >> yes. you can start to get moving. that will push the trees over a little bit. this had a special history. we had a lot of damage here. i guess the water from leaking laguna runs underground out to

golden gate park. it covers about two or three blocks along side to seventh avenue. there was a lot of water damage we might have even had some liquefaction soil failure. we had a major failure. >> that's right. this tribute goes all the way to golden gate. this is in a mountain lake and beyond ththat, it was a surface flow. this is a reservoir. on my right is this defensive the positive dune sand. the wind blows, it comes from the ocean beach.

because the sand is moving, you can see evidence along this side of the hill in 1989. the vibrations in accelerated. you have a significant amount of movement to the point that the homes that uc had very severe damage for two blocks. we recognized what the problem was at the time, it was a matter of loose sand on a very steep slope. thank you for the effort. we were able to get federal funding and design which you see in the upper walls. the lower walls was actually billed as part of the wpa. the upper wall was built in 1991-'92. this is a concrete wall and it has rocked going through the wall that extends the distance of 80 feet beyond the wall.

the next earthquake occurs, the wall is designed to resist and the movement of the sand and allowed it to move down hill. this is a classic example of the creek and degree flow and exists all the way the area. we might see the other evidence. we have done nothing to improve the quality and the strength of the dam. >> one of the things that has come up in the policy issue over and over is that people are concerned that construction of a new building or the upper story might exacerbate these kinds of soil problems. we have extra review where we might have extra problems. it does that construction have an impact?