Should I let the treat of earthquakes affect my evaluation of San Fran for relocation

[mayorhaggar]

Earthquakes are an issue almost anywhere in California and there's nowhere you can go in the Bay Area to get away from them. LA is statistically more likely to get a major San Andreas quake than the SF area is, but the Hayward Fault which is East of SF is due for a major quake, though it will be smaller than the ones the San Andreas can produce.

It just depends on how close you are to the epicenter, and again quakes can strike up and down many different fault lines so it's very unpredictable, also some types of quakes can cause damage further away than others even if they're the same magnitude.

I don't think they're that big of a danger, the Bay Area is a lot more prepared for a major quake than most places around the world, but I don't like having to worry about them all the time, but you do get used to it. I'm planning on moving back east in a few months and am looking forward to not having to worry about them, though of course I'll have other things to worry about.

[sonarrat]

The midwest gets earthquakes that would make us want to run and hide. But it doesn't happen very often. If you're ever in a mood to be terrified, look at the course of the Mississippi River and compare it to the state line between Missouri and Illinois/Kentucky.. they used to be the same until the New Madrid quakes of 1811-12..

[californio sur]

Unfortunately part of the problem is misinformation. This article claims "over 200" people were killed in the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989:
San Francisco, CA Deadly Earthquake, Oct 1989 | GenDisasters ... Genealogy in Tragedy, Disasters, Fires, Floods

That statement is not true. Unless the Wikipedia list of major earthquakes for California is false there were only 60 dead a [lot of the fatalities were in Oakland not San Francisco]. Also according to Wikipedia less than 3500 people have died in California earthquakes since 1812. I see the number of deaths attributed to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake is placed at "3000+" [historians indicate that the city of San Francisco intentionally minimized the number of deaths due to tourist concerns]. Over the past 30 years there have been only 138 earthquake fatalities starting with the Whittier Narrows quake 1987. Also there have been 3 earthquakes that were 7 or above magnitude and only 3 people were killed [though they were in fairly remote areas in the desert and off Mendocino county.

List of earthquakes in California - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Gentoo]

Also, when it comes to quakes, lets not leave out the Pacific-Northwest. They will get those wicked megathrust quakes someday. Those are the largest earthqaukes that occur anywhere. Think of the 2004 Indonesian quake, the 1964 Alaska quake (the second largest one ever recorded...a 9.2!). We think 50 seconds is a long quake but they say Seattle will experience intense shaking for 5 minutes! Seattle has already had a major quake in 2001, the 6.8 Nisqually quake. 6.8 puts that in Northridge territory.