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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What Would a Large Earthquake Do to Downtown L.A.?
From the USGS Newsroom:
USGS scientist Ken Hudnut fills us in on how science created the theoretical magnitude 7.8 earthquake behind the Great Southern California ShakeOut—the largest earthquake preparedness drill in U.S. history, coming Nov. 13—and what such an earthquake would do to downtown Los Angeles.
Seems like they did it right wiith this study. They had multiple teams independenlty come up with the ground shaking model, then had different structural engineers who are experts in seismic design of large buildings review the tall buildings in the L.A. area for the design earthquake. They say that buildings would likely come down in the 7.8 magnitude event. Click through to watch the video interview from the USGS.
Video: LiDAR-Illuminating Earthquake Hazards
From YouTube: As part of a Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) and OpenTopography collaboration, Sarah Robinson (ASU M.S. student) and Andrew Whitesides (USC undergraduate) – supported by SCEC’s ACCESS program (Advancement of Cyberinfrastructure Careers through […]