A Dangerous Place

One in two people living west of the 100th meridian in the United States resides in California. Crammed into the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles Basin is a population greater than that of Texas. Both these drought-prone regions need to import water over seemingly improbably distances. Reliance on imported water, however, is not their Achilles heel; it is the fact that each sits astride one of the most violently active seismic zones in the world. This study chronicles the man-made eruption of development and progress over since the 1850s and a natural history of the subterranean upheavals that have threatened the human achievement. It concludes by describing in chillingly realistic detail the potential impact of an earthquake originating in the 60-mile Hayward Fault running from San Francisco to San Jose.