1994LAEarthquakes

On Monday, January 17, 1994 a earthquake hit Los Angeles at 4:31 a.m. on Martin Luther King Day, this killed 54 people, and about 1,500 people were rushed to hospitals for major injuries, this earthquake caused billions of dollars in damages. The Northridge earthquake was one of the most damaging. The 6.7-magnitude struck the San Fernando Valley, a densely populated area of Los Angeles, located about 20 miles northeast of the cities downtown. With a epicenter 12 miles beneath earths surface, a few apartment buildings collapsed during this earthquake. 16 people died in the process, at Northridge Meadows complex, all who lived on the first floor, were sleeping as the weak appartment conplex fell on top of them.
 * Introduction: **

The area hit the worse by this earthquake was reported to be the San Fernando Valley. Los Angeles emergency services are using heat detected cameras and listening equipment to trace signs of life beneath the rubble. Grove Lamas, one of the city's fire fighters quoted that it was very fortunate that the quake struck during the night, he specifically said "If this had happened in the middle of the day, we would have been stacking up the bodies" one of the Los Angeles residents said "it was like a bomb going off" freeways were crumbled, buildings were colapsed, and more than 100 fires broke out. About 15,000 people were homeless, around 11,000 homes were said to be unsafe, or destroyed. Everyone of Los Angeles' 650 schools were damaged, leaving thousands of students unable to go to classes. a lot of the home owners were afraid to return to the undamaged homes, because of the trauma of another disaster waiting to happen. given the strength and location of the earthquake, it was very fortunate that the death rate was not so much higher, A mall parking lot in the valley, collapsed as well, but no one was hurt because the whole parking lot was entirely empty. A few high ways also approched damage, but only one police officer was injured, his vehicle flew off the over pass. The buildings and safety codes were more stable following the 1971 Sylmar quake that collapsed San Fernando Veterans Hospital. Every building was repaired after the new regulations and stayed intact.
 * Synopsis: **

Every earthquake provides us with lessons, The Northridge Earthquake did not give us new lessons. It is encouraging when we know the knowledge of how earthly things like this behave, In an earthquake, it is converging rather than diverging, changes are will be made for the buildings, based on the knowledge of the earthquakes, The challenge of that is trying to convince the owners, developers, architects, and government officials that engineering and constructing costs money when developing new earthquake resistant buildings, its worth the cost and very useful, since this was an earthquake in Los Angeles it did a lot of damage to everyone, and was very costly in the repairs, of the damages. Something we learned designing a highway bridge to withstand large earthquake forces, is a technically challenged and until relatively recent times daunting problems. However recent earthquakes coupled with FHWA and state sponsored research efforts, has showed us about bridge performance under these conditions. Even though it is absolutely impossible to design a bridge that is "earthquake proof" a number of basic principles have been revealed that if followed will improve the science performance and take away the likelihood of structure collapse. FHWA research will procide to lead the development of the next generation of national seismic design and retrofit technology.
 * Conclusion: **

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