The Big Ones

March 1, 2018
U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Jones turns in a glancing tour of natural calamities through time.The "big one" of the title" is the earthquake that will someday level Southern California, one that will rattle seven times or more as long as the Northridge quake of 1994 and cause significant damage. In the ShakeOut exercise that the author led in 2007-2008, the model she employed presumed the destruction of 1,500 buildings and the loss of 1,800 lives, with another 53,000 or so injured. "Life will not return to any semblance of normality for quite some time for the residents of Southern California," she writes. There's a good book waiting to be written entirely on such a scenario, something along the lines of Alan Weisman's The World Without Us (2007), but Jones moves on to less fruitful ground in examining the effects of other "big ones" on human civilization. Her take on Pompeii, for instance, is a little thin, and her speculation that natural disaster divides the blame-the-gods attitude of the Romans from the blame-the-humans attitude of the Jews again needs a book all its own. Much better is the author's account of the catastrophic effect of the devastating Tangshan earthquake of 1976. According to the author, that quake played a major role in the deflation of the image of Mao Zedong as infallible and brought about the defeat of the leftists at the close of the Cultural Revolution. Inarguably, big disasters produce big political consequences, as witness another of Jones' cases in point, Hurricane Katrina. The author gets points for her projection of how we will respond when the Big Onethe big one finally hits, with a mixture of conspiracy theory (the scientists knew but didn't say) and blame, whether of FEMA or the government or "the sinners of the hedonistic La-La Land" for living there in the first place.Uneven, but of interest to readers with a bent for natural disaster--and to those keen on surviving it.

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March 5, 2018
Jones, a seismologist for the U.S. Geological Survey for 30 years, surveys 11 natural disasters in this bracing examination of past responses to disaster and possible future courses of action. She doesn’t hesitate to portray how human prejudices, superstitions, pride, and other weaknesses have exacerbated the suffering caused by naturally occurring events, making clear that the interaction between the event and the human response usually dictates the magnitude of the damage, whether it results from earthquakes in Japan and China, an 18th-century Icelandic volcano eruption, or floods in the American South. She makes clear that “we need to accept that the timing of a disaster’s occurrence is unambiguously random—we may never be able to anticipate the when of our big ones.” Jones gives readers hope, though, describing what has been learned from each cataclysmic event and, in her final chapter, outlining ways that future catastrophes can be mitigated. This work could prove beneficial to all who live in an area prone to natural disasters, which is just about everyone.

March 15, 2018

From China to California, Iceland to Indonesia, seismologist Jones describes the devastating effects of volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes over the past few hundred years. For all her impressive expertise, Jones delivers a very accessible book--without sacrificing the scientific content, the text is sprinkled with relatable analogies to help readers better understand some of the more technical geological processes. More importantly, Jones keeps the focus on the human side of natural disasters, for better--such as the complete rebuilding of Lisbon after the 1755 earthquake--or worse, as in the case of the failed American response to 2005's Hurricane Katrina or the poor communication from the Japanese government in the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami-induced Fukushima nuclear disaster. Overall, this book is less about natural disasters themselves and more about how to minimize their destructive impact on human civilization. Jones offers plenty of advice for city planners, architects, and other organizations, but also provides recommendations that anyone can use to make themselves and their communities more resilient to risk. VERDICT Touching on environmental science, history, sustainability, plate tectonics, engineering, and design, this book is sure to have broad appeal.--Meredith Powers, York Coll., Brooklyn

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