Sunday, March 20, 2011

New England Gets Earthquakes Too

The Boston Globe writes Temblors shook Boston centuries before. It's the obligatory "New England gets earthquakes too" story. But the examples they choose to scare us are pretty lame:

"Tremors rumbled through Boston on a winter day in 1663, causing chimneys to tumble, a tavern wall to crack, and objects to fall off shelves."

“About 6 o’clock at night there happened an earthquake, wch shook mens houses and caused many to run out of their houses into the streets,’’ he wrote. “And ye tops of 2 or 3 chimnyes fell off.’’

"But they occur, and engineers and emergency planners thinking about quake risk frequently reference a 6.2-magnitude quake that struck Cape Ann in 1755 and toppled the weathervane on Faneuil Hall."

Not to tempt fate, but you're not going to scare me by telling me that 256 years ago an earthquake knocked the weathervane off Faneuil Hall.

They claim these were magnitude 6 or 7 and those are certainly serious. And I'm sure our building codes aren't as earthquake aware as California or Japan. The articles says the big dig takes them into account (though they couldn't even keep the roof from just falling down on its own) but cites the centuries old brick buildings in Boston as being at real risk and that makes sense. Though apparently 256 years ago a large brick building named Faneuil Hall survived a big earthquake with only minor damage.

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