The prophecy is more than seeing into the future. For the prophecy sees without the element of time. For the prophecy sees things as they were, as they are, and as they always shall be.
Thursday, November 30, 2017
New York Should Prepare for the Sixth Seal (Revelation 6:12)
By Kathryn Miles
For
a city that seems to move at the speed of light, being late is never a
good thing. That’s true for budget agreements, that’s true for commuter
trains, and as it turns out, it’s probably true for earthquakes as well.
We tend to think of seismic activity as a west coast problem. Friday demonstrated all too well what a magnitude 8.2 earthquake can do to Mexico and Central America;
many of us remember the World Series quake that rocked the San
Francisco area in 1989. But New York, which is actually riddled with
faults, has a long history of earthquakes: On average, the region has
witnessed a moderate quake (about a 5.0 on the Richter scale) every
hundred years. The last one was in 1884. Seismologists say we can expect
the next one any day now.
Admittedly, a moderate quake isn’t going to cause Hollywood-level destruction, nor is it going to raze Manhattan. But it is going to do plenty of damage: upwards of $39 billion in losses and over 30 million tons of debris.
That rubble, caused largely by crumbled brick and stone buildings, is
going to clog already congested roads, making it impossible for first
responders and public transportation to move about the city.
It
may be equally difficult to travel below ground in some cases. Take the
Steinway Tunnel, a 1.3-mile cast-iron tube that runs deep below the East
River. The 7 train passes through it every 20 minutes, often packed
with commuters or, this time of year, Mets fans. Construction on the
tunnel began around the time of the last earthquake, long before seismic
codes or even modern engineering practices had been codified. As a
result, there are big craters and gaps where the tunnel lining isn’t
actually in contact with the earth around it. In the event of a quake,
that’s going to cause the tunnel to rattle around. And because the
tunnel runs through both the soft mud of the riverbed and the hard
bedrock on either side, different segments are going to rattle around at
different speeds and frequencies. That’s doubly bad news for cast iron
that was never in very good shape to begin with.
Modal TriggerMike GuillenJust
how well the plant would perform in an earthquake remains a subject of
debate amongst scientists and engineers. Klaus Jacob, a research
scientist at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, thinks even a
5.0 quake would raise safety concerns at the plant. A 7.0, he says, could easily do damage to the domes containing the reactors. Meanwhile,
the siting of a large natural-gas pipeline near the plant has raised
concerns with some nuclear insiders, who predict an explosion could
create a Fukushima-like event there. Gas pipelines aren’t held to the
same seismic standards as power plants, and they aren’t required to
survive a seismic event. They also come with some of the same
vulnerabilities seen in tunnels like the Steinway. Were
this pipeline to rupture in an earthquake, it could cause a meltdown
easily capable of billions of dollars of damage and the evacuation of
millions of people.We don’t have to be left with these
doomsday scenarios. While earthquakes will also remain the most powerful
and least understood natural disasters, investing in infrastructure and
emergency plans can make their eventuality a lot less costly, both in
terms of human life and the national economy. For that to happen, Gov.
Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio will need to find a way to set aside their
differences and agree on a funding package that shores up New York’s
most vulnerable tubes and tunnels. The state will need to take a hard
look at the real risk of pipelines like the one to be completed near
Indian Point. And Congress, now back from its summer recess, will need
to find a way to pass a budget that includes real investment in our
national infrastructure.
These are matters that can’t wait. New
York’s next earthquake may be late, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be
pulling into the station soon.
NYC FAULT FACTS
The last observable NYC quake happened on Oct. 27, 2001 along the 125th Street Fault,
which runs all the way across Central Park and underneath Long Island
City. Its epicenter hit around 55th and Eighth — directly beneath the
first Original Soupman restaurant. The rumbling unnerved a city still
reeling from the 9/11 attacks but did not cause any real damage.
The most recent 5.0 magnitude quake in NYC occurred in August 1884 .
Centered off Queens’ Rockaway Beach, it was felt over 70,000 square
miles , opening enormous crevices near the Brooklyn reservoir, rocking
the Brooklyn Bridge and knocking down chimneys and cracking walls as far
away as Pennsylvania.
On any given day, 1,000 or so earthquakes occur across the globe.
Around 500,000 earthquakes hit the world each year, but only about 100
actually cause damage.
Map:
Merguerian, Charles, 2015b, Review of New York City bedrock with a
focus on brittle structures; p. 17-67 in Herman, G. C. and Macaoay
Ferguson, S., eds., Geological Association of New Jersey Guidebook,
Neotectonics of the New York Recess, 32nd Annual Conference and Field
Trip, Lafayette College, Easton, PA, 214 p.
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