Jim Berkland is considered to be a crank by many of his former colleagues. The retired geologist has gone on record several times predicting possible earthquakes in California. “I’ve predicted hundreds, including all 23 in the Bay Area since 1974,” he says. The problem, he says, is that officials are wary of him. He claims he was told not to make any more predictions, since they could cause mass panic. In 1989, he was suspended for two months from the US Geological Survey, ostensibly for predicting a major earthquake.
Unfortunately, he was right. The earthquake he predicted was the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which rocked the Bay Area during the World Series. Now Berkland insists that another quake is coming sometime between March 19 and March 26. The reasons he gives are the moon’s close proximity, extremely high tides and changes to the Earth’s magnetic field that are affecting wildlife. Given the recent earthquake in Japan and the tsunami that struck the Santa Cruz coast, some people are not taking his warning lightly.
About 100 of them gathered in the Santa Cruz Police Department’s community room last night to hear how the County’s Office of Emergency Services was preparing for “the big one.” The meeting was planned long before last week, to mark National Tsunami Awareness Week. The events of the past two weeks overseas only exacerbated people’s concerns.
At the meeting, Office of Emergency Services Manager Paul Horvat presented concerned residents with new maps and evacuation routes. He hopes to avoid the gridlock that occurred two weeks ago along Highway 152, as people fled the coastal areas to avoid the tsunami. More meetings are planned over the next few weeks, and efforts will be made to ensure that the community knows exactly how to respond.
Will there be enough time? Not if Berkland is right. He insists that he is never more than one day off, which means that we could see another earthquake here as early as Friday. Fortunately, most scientists reject his claims. “We don’t think earthquake prediction can be done at the moment,” says Steve Walter of the USGS. “I don’t think [Berkland’s] method passes scientific muster,” adds Tom Heaton, Professor of Seismology at the California Institute of Technology.
Still, if last night’s meeting with the OES is any indication, it looks like people aren’t taking any chances.
Read more at Fox 35, San Francisco Examiner and NBC Bay Area. Also read more in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
