The U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General released a scathing audit report on the troubled Port of Anchorage expansion project and the obscure federal agency that was supposed to be overseeing it, the Maritime Administration or MARAD. Among many problems, the original open-cell sheet-pile system was found to have significant design flaws making them vulnerable to earthquakes. The report described the agency’s lack of capability to manage a project of that size, its inability to audit it’s own numbers, a failure to verify cost figures for the over $1 billion project, and the fact that a Native corporation involved in the contracting was merely a ‘shell corporation’. [Source: Read more about the scathing audit report at ADN.com. Image: BILL ROTH — Anchorage Daily News]
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New Study Shows Odds High for Big California Quakes
Released: 4/14/2008 12:02:15 PM
California has more than a 99% chance of having a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake within the next 30 years, according scientists using a new model to determine the probability of big quakes.
The likelihood of a major quake of magnitude 7.5 or greater in the next 30 years is 46%-and such a quake is most likely to occur in the southern half of the state.
[Editor] At Left: Figure 1. The colors on this California map represent the UCERF probabilities of having a nearby earthquake rupture (within 3 or 4 miles) of magnitude 6.7 or larger in the next 30 years. As shown in the table, the chance of having such an event somewhere in California exceeds 99%. The 30-year probability of an even more powerful quake of magnitude 7.5 or larger is about 46%. [/Editor]