Ryan Hubbard

At 4:18 p.m. today, a M=7.0 earthquake will tear across the East Bay. The quake’s epicenter will be just east of downtown Oakland along the Hayward Fault. Shaking will be felt across the entire Bay Area, and in many areas, it will be strong enough to destroy buildings, and render many vital lifelines useless. Up to 400,000 people will be unable to use their homes, 22,000 people will be trapped in elevators, more than 400 gas and electric fires will start, and East Bay residents could lose tap water for up to 6 months. In total, losses will likely exceed $100 billion, and aftershocks will shake the region for years.

Fortunately, this earthquake is not real, but rather a USGS scenario, dubbed HayWired, that will be presented to the public today, coinciding with the release of the scenario’s second volume, on the impacts of a large magnitude earthquake on the Bay Area.

(Read More)

Nobody knows when “The Big One” is going to hit California, but here’s how experts think it will play out when it does.
California is the land of beaches, mountains, and Hollywood. It’s also, inconveniently, a dangerous minefield riddled with nasty fault lines that rupture without much warning, generating massive earthquakes that can level buildings, pulverize roads, and kill lots of people in the span of seconds.

The San Andreas is the most notorious of these faults. It runs roughly 800 miles long and produces quakes so catastrophic that there’s a 2015 action movie about it starring The Rock.

(Read More)

At 5:04pm on October 17th, 1989 the Loma Prieta earthquake struck the San Francisco Bay area a few minutes before the Giants were to face the Athletics in game 3 of the World Series. The world has changed a lot since then. From the proliferation of mobile phones, to the growth of email to the launch of Facebook, we’ve become a much more connected society. The virtual explosion of computing power over the past half-decade has been remarkable. New earthquake warning systems are on the horizon for the US. Several companies have even emerged who specialize in mapping earthquake data in real time so that search and rescue teams can improve their disaster response efforts.

There hasn’t been a major earthquake in Northern California in over thirty years. But, ask yourself when was the last major earthquake on the Hayward fault? The answer is about 150 years ago. The 80-mile-long Hayward fault winds through just east of San Jose and then travels underneath the cities of Oakland, Fremont, Hayward and Berkeley. The USGS says a 33% chance exists for the Hayward ruptures in a M=6.7+ earthquake by 2043. All Bay Area residents should be concerned about this prediction.

Seismologists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently developed a simulation for an earthquake on the Hayward using three-dimensional technology on one of their supercomputers. This simulation turned into the most advanced ever run.

The LLNL scientists rely on ISO-Base™ platforms from WorkSafe Technologies™ to protect these same supercomputers which ran the simulation because they are located in Livermore which is about 20 miles away from the Hayward fault.

Here is a link to read more about this advanced simulation.

The entire Bay Area was awakened

Last night, at 2:39 a.m. local time, a M=4.4 earthquake struck along the Hayward Fault underneath the city of Berkeley. The quake was felt throughout the entire Bay Area, and by noon today, over 35,000 people had filled out felt reports on the USGS website. Based on the distribution of shaking, nearly 10 million people would have been exposed to some level of shaking. Close to the epicenter shaking was moderate, and no damage is expected. Based on its magnitude, the quake was felt across a much greater area than expected.

Read More

For years, scientists have drawn up terrifying scenarios of widespread destruction and chaos that would come to Southern California when a catastrophic earthquake hits.

Their efforts to warn the public may get an unlikely boost from the unprecedented disaster unfolding in Houston, where Tropical Storm Harvey dumped trillions of gallons of rain across Texas and brought America’s fourth-largest city to its knees.

Read More

Gary Wong is Director of Applications Engineering at Instor Solutions.

Of all the natural disasters that can affect data centers, earthquakes are among the most damaging. Given the data center industry’s continued growth and expansion throughout California, these potentially catastrophic events are always top of mind for data center owners and operators.

With the passing of the 27th anniversary of the 6.9-magnitude Loma Prieta earthquake, centered within 10 miles of Santa Cruz, now is the time for data centers across California and other areas prone to seismic activity to reevaluate their earthquake disaster strategies and look at the availability of proactive protection plans.

Across the world, there are an estimated 500,000 detectable earthquakes each year; 10,000 in the area of Southern California alone. These sobering facts lead to some important questions: If an earthquake like the Loma Prieta were to strike again, how are data centers better protected now than 27 years ago? What would the projected loss be to your company and customers if a major earthquake hit? What is your company doing to protect the valuable data and physical assets in your facility?

Earthquake damage can be particularly devastating to the data center industry for a variety of reasons. Going beyond the health and safety of its staff, the loss of uptime resulting from an earthquake can be financially devastating. If a seismic event occurs and the facility is unprotected, the physical damage to servers and IT equipment can also be beyond repair. This combination of loss of equipment and downtime for clients will likely result in the loss of the business in its entirety.

While we have yet to develop the technology to accurately predict where and when an earthquake will take place, there are precautions that owners and operators can take to help protect data centers from substantial earthquake damage. Whether planning a new build or retrofitting an existing facility, these forms of seismic planning should be a priority.

Read More