The worst about being from a country that NEVER had an earthquake and then suddenly moving to Los Angeles and having engineering skills is driving around the city and seeing those "seismic tiles" bolted on the walls, specially on old brick buildings.
Any person that understands just a little bit about the dynamics during an earthquake understand that hardening the structure isn't always the best solution.
Specially in downtown area, when a big earthquake happens, most of those 2 or 3 floor buildings will certainly collapse.
The engineers at that time didn't deliberately design buildings to collapse. They just didn't have the knowledge we have nowadays.
Unfortunately, many people think that "retrofitting" made those buildings earthquake proof. It's exactly the opposite. The structural reinforcement actually made those building less resistant to an earthquake.
On the other hand I can remember some buildings that I had to park my car and look closer, to admire something I studied the theory in college but never had a chance to see it applied in a real building. First building is near the World Trade Center, in Downtown Los Angeles. The building was retrofitted with an external steel cage and the floors were split with shocks between them. During a strong earthquake, each floor can move freely, completely independent from the other floors. It won't be pleasant to be in that building during an earthquake because the rolling and jolts are actually amplified by the structure (that's how it dissipates the energy) but certainly that's a place you want to be to survive.
The other building is the Burbank airport. It was built under modern seismic engineering knowledge. The whole building is suspended in giant shocks and then the structure is extremely resistant and not flexible. Coincidentally, the same theory applies to washing machines. Making the story short, the Burbank airport is a giant front load washer.
And of course, there's the US Bank Building (Oue Skyspace), the tallest building in Los Angeles and also one of the most famous because Hollywood made that building collapse, burn and even be attacked by E.T.s and washed away by a giant tsunami in several movies and TV series.
Question number one when I arrived here was: Who is stupid enough to build such skyscraper in a city that everybody is waiting for the "Big One"? However, walking in front of the building, you look to the sidewalk and can easily understand.
Los Angeles can collapse, the whole city can slide into the ocean and the OUE Skyspace probably won't have even a cracked window and people inside it probably won't notice a magnitude 12 earthquake.
Now, back to gas... One thing I forgot to mention before and you can understand ONLY when you actually feel an earthquake.Earthquakes can't be predicted, there's no earthquake forecast system. We now have the annoying ShakeAlert but it doesn't "predict" earthquakes because it's impossible to predict one. It goes off when seismic sensors detect an earthquake so the closer you are from the epicenter, the shorter will be the gap between the alarm and the first shock wave.
Don't think "Oh, if an earthquake happens, i can run to the kitchen and turn off the stove." No, you can't. You have no time for that. Eventually you can feel some rolling or a very weak jolt a couple of seconds before a much stronger impact. but you may not be "alert" enough to process the information and understand that's an actual earthquake and in 1 or 2 seconds there's not much you can do, except drop, cover and hold on. Everything is quiet, normal and half second later the place you are turns into a giant cocktail shaker.
Of course, we can't be paranoid, we need to live, but we all must be ready.
My family spent 10 days visiting me and they couldn't understand why i have boxes of military food piled in my living room (I'm actually making two emergency kits, for here and for my father-in-law).
I still need to buy more flashlights, another lamp, some tools, make two DECENT first aid kits (because those that come ready are useless unless you need a lifetime stock of bandaid.), batteries and hand crank radios, blankets, ponchos, etc.
