Frightening and destructive earthquakes have rocked the San Francisco Bay Area, Coalinga, Calif., Alaska, Mexico City, Armenia, and Japan in the 1980s. Earthquakes have also been felt in the Midwest, the South, and in New England. Recent information suggests that there are potentially active fault systems in New York City as well as other parts of the mid-Atlantic region. In fact recently revised earthquake hazard maps show that in the United States alone over 50 million people live in areas of greater-than-average seismic risk, while perhaps a half a billion share the risk world wide. While the idea of earthquake proofing is naïve, the need to protect the structures we design and build is valid and real. Applying what
