New Jersey is overdue for major earthquake (Rev 6:12)

Is New Jersey overdue for major earthquake?

Devin Loring, @DevinLoring 9:28 p.m. EDT August 30, 2015

 

Check out the map of New Jersey’s most recent earthquakes at the end of the story.

(Photo: Associated Press file photo)

Story Highlights

• The USGS said NJ is “overdue” for an earthquake
• Earthquakes are highly unpredictable
• On the East Coast, earthquakes tremors travel farther
• Only two percent of homeowners have earthquake insurance in the northeast

In the past year, there have been more than 6,000 earthquakes in California, including two that have measured at least 4.0 on the Richter scale.
Contrast that to New Jersey, where there have been seven earthquakes in the past year, which all measured 2.7 or less.

But don’t cross earthquakes off your list of natural disasters just yet. In fact, researchers say New Jersey is overdue for a moderate earthquake of 5.0 or greater.

“Long overdue, (but) for how long, that’s the question,” said Vadim Levin, an associate professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Rutgers University.

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection said 10 years ago that we’re due for at least a moderate earthquake.

In a more recent study, in 2008, the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America reiterated the same threat.

“The region is not really well prepared for any level of shaking,” Levin said.

“The population density is so extremely high. … Look at earthquake-related disasters. They don’t link to the large size of earthquakes, but the confluence of how close they are to people.”

Not to mention how close they are to suspension bridges, skyscrapers, utility lines and modern infrastructure.

“Today, with so many more buildings and people, a magnitude 5 centered below the city would be extremely attention-getting,” said John Armbruster in 2008.

“We’d see billions in damage, with some brick buildings falling. People would probably be killed.”

Office workers gather on a sidewalk after their building was evacuated following a 2011 earthquake in New York. (Photo: Associated Press file photo)

There are earthquakes in Jersey?

One of the strongest earthquakes in New Jersey measured a 4.9 on the Richter scale — a moderate quake — that struck in 1783 and was felt throughout Pennsylvania and New Hampshire.

Almost 90 years ago, Asbury Park experienced a 3.9 magnitude quake in 1927, and it toppled chimneys and knocked items off shelves.

Earlier this month, a light earthquake was very noticeable to residents in and around Morristown.

It measured 2.7, and was felt as far south as Jackson, and as far north as Suffern, New York. It measured “weak” to “light” on the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale.

According to a DEP study from 2005, intense quakes are likely to happen in New Jersey every 100 years or less — which makes New Jersey earthquakes that much harder to predict — and means New Jersey is overdue for an earthquake.

“Once in 10 generations is very difficult to study,” Levin said. “That’s the biggest challenge (because) we live inside a stable plate.”

A “stable plate” describes New Jersey’s tectonics. Here, the Earth’s crust “fits together and doesn’t deform very much,” Levin said.

Despite the stability of New Jersey’s crust, earthquakes can be felt throughout New Jersey, Levin said.

The big one

Researchers don’t really understand why earthquakes happen on the East Coast, especially because in New Jersey, small earthquakes happen over a diffuse area and do not form an easily identifiable zone of action, Levin said.

“What makes us slightly more nervous these days is the recent Virginia earthquake,” Levin said.

“That event was rather large, there was serious damage, and of course, no prior history of such events recorded.”

In 2011, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in Virginia was felt from Georgia to Maine, in Michigan and Illinois, and in Canada, according to the United States Geological Survey.

“That (2011 earthquake) damaged a nuclear power plant — not severely, only to the extent that it had to shut down operations,” said Arthur Lerner-Lam, deputy director of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University.

“It points out the issue of fragility on our infrastructure,” Lerner-Lam said. “The resiliency or vulnerability of our bridges, tunnels, power lines, pipelines, is a very important feature of the overall vulnerability of the metropolitan region.”

What makes East Coast quakes all the more unpredictable is that quakes here differ from those on the West Coast, where they are more frequent.

Because the earth on the East Coast has different properties than the west, shakes from quakes are transmitted farther here than they are in California, Levin said.

Getting protection

Standard homeowner, renter, and business insurance policies typically do not cover earthquake damage, according to the Insurance Information Institute.

Only 7 percent of homeowners who responded to an Institute survey in 2014 said they had earthquake insurance.

Only about 2 percent of homeowners in the Northeast have earthquake coverage, the survey revealed. Levin said he declines to have earthquake coverage, saying hurricanes and flooding are a much greater risk in New Jersey.

“If an event is extremely unlikely, how much money is worth investing in safeguarding from it?” Levin said.

Although there is no reliable way to predict a major earthquake, let’s just say experts don’t think whole cities will crumble or be consumed by the ocean, as depicted by Hollywood.

“I’m planning to take my class to see ‘San Andreas.’ Oh my God, that’s such overkill,” Levin said.

Devin Loring; 732-463-4053; dloring@gannettnj.com