Issue Date: July 14, 2002

In this article:
Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions
Monster waves, pestilence
Hurricanes

Natural disaster masters
Calamities are predictable. Today's top scientists tell us when and where.
By Dennis McCafferty

The natural disaster intrigues us -- when it's not frightening us out of our wits. It is a rampage without boundaries, yet poetic in its power. Our fascination with catastrophe is as old as the Scriptures. As children, we eagerly flipped to the pages about frogs and floods -- How did Noah feed all of those animals for so long? Noah, fortunately, had advance warning; he could stock up at the Old Testament equivalent of Petsmart.

These days, we still maintain an insatiable curiosity about nature's fickle, destructive ways. But instead of depending on prophecies to prepare, we have modern science, as researchers unravel more every day about the Earth's mysterious methods. They're constantly monitoring how much Earth is shifting underneath our feet. They're dotting the sea with buoys equipped with data communications tools to get a handle on when the next monster wave is coming. A volcanologist can look deep down into the "throat" of a smoldering mountain to sense when it's rumbling inside, like an upset stomach, ready to blow.

This is science at its most gripping, constructing a sense of reason behind that which appears beyond reason: Earth forces that have inspired our primal fears through the ages and will continue to do so long after we're gone. To learn more, USA WEEKEND Magazine asked top scientists in their fields -- people who track earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes and even pestilence -- to reveal when (and where) they expect the next Big One.

Earthquakes
Call it the San Andreas slide. Along the fabled fault line, there are tectonic plates, massive slabs of Mother Earth rubbing up against each other like two very large people in a tiny elevator. Friction results, producing the California-style earthquake. But movement is a relative term. Scientists monitoring the Earth's activity have concluded that the ground shifts about 2.5 inches a year along the fault, says David Schwartz, research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. To put it in context, the ground moved about 18 feet during the 1906 San Francisco quake -- a belligerent shock to the seismic system that killed more than 3,000 people and hit at least 7.7 in magnitude. The '89 San Francisco quake, which killed 62 and delayed the World Series, was a 6.9-level event in which the earth moved less than six feet.

For the time being, things are relatively benign. As for 2002 and beyond? Scientists are watching the Los Angeles and San Francisco regions, which risk a 70% chance of a major quake within the next three decades. Why those cities and not, say, Sacramento? Mainly because there is more geological complexity within the seismic universe in those two metropolitan areas. More complexity means more pieces of earth making friction.

Volcanic eruptions
Every year, we see at least 50 fiery volcanic eruptions on the face of planet Earth. Oh, you don't recall seeing footage of fleeing masses on CNN? That's because, for nearly two decades, the volcanoes have had their hissy fits far from any actual humankind. Gawkers safely enjoy the show from afar, often high in the air. (If you're game, you can find helicopter tours of Hawaiian volcanoes starting at about $150.)

"Volcanoes are more a tourist attraction than a danger," says Dan Miller, a research volcanologist for the U.S. Geological Survey. However, scientists are closely watching Washington state, Oregon and northern California, where there are about a dozen volcanoes that could cause problems, and at least one should erupt sometime in this century. "We can't tell you exactly whether it will be Mount St. Helens again or another one," Miller says. "Mount St. Helens erupted from 1980 to 1986. Now, it's asleep. But it could wake up."

Not that the scientists are in the dark about a volcano's predictive behaviors. They constantly measure the cracks along the top of a volcano, as the molten rock releases carbon dioxide/sulfur dioxide gases and expands the volcano's cap. From helicopters, they can plant seismometers -- instruments the size of a briefcase that "listen" to vibrations -- down inside to find out whether magma, or molten rock, is getting active. "That's a good indication that the magma is on the move to go upward," Miller says. Which means anyone below should consider getting on the move, too.

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Monster waves
In addition to having the coolest name -- tsunami -- the monster wave is among the most awe-inspiring of disasters. (No, we don't call them tidal waves. Tsunamis usually are caused by earthquakes or landslides in the water, not tidal shifts.) In the Pacific, just south of Alaska's Kodiak Island and spreading down the West Coast, Earth's underwater tectonic plates are rubbing up against each other, creating quake-potential friction.

"There may not be a tsunami there in the next two years," says Eddie Bernard, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and chair of the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program. "But within the next 10 or 20 years? It's very possible. Then again, it could happen tomorrow. Also: The population there has grown quite a bit, with development. We can expect more damage, with more debris from buildings."

In southern California, there are steep ocean canyons that can trigger tsunami-causing landslides. Scientists fear a 25-foot wave will smash down on Santa Monica and wash high-powered pleasure boats some 20 to 40 feet long into trendy shops, homes and clubs for a mile inland. "That's a low-lying area with lots of people," Bernard says. "The water would just wash all over it and create a real mess. These boats contain a lot of fuel, making the scene rather combustible."

Unfortunately, tsunamis literally can travel at the speed of a jet plane and will attack with little notice, within five minutes to 15 hours after an underwater earthquake or landslide. There's usually one major tsunami a year with considerable potential for destruction, but they generally crash upon the shores of the western Pacific, on islands such as Java in Indonesia. In 1992, a small tsunami hit northern California, but there were no deaths and only minimal damage.

Pestilence
The deer's reputation is going downhill. A number of factors -- the animal's 20th-century population explosion, for starters -- have brought man and deer together. Deer mill about outside our suburban Starbucks and soccer fields. They create a nuisance by making a mess of our gardens, and worse when they get caught in our headlights and cause traffic accidents. Yet the most significant impact could be the introduction of the deer's parasitic associate, the deer tick, into our surroundings. The deer tick is a transmitter of Lyme disease and the potentially fatal human babesiosis, a malaria-like disease. By the 1970s, the deer population had grown in many areas to well over the eight-per-square-mile threshold that is considered a risk for tick-related diseases. Infections then began to surface. There are now more than 16,000 cases of Lyme infection a year, mainly in the Northeast from Massachusetts to Maryland, and the upper Midwest, especially Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois. And we see at least 70 annual infections of human babesiosis, mainly in deer-populated coastal areas of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York. Now the infections appear to be expanding into northern New Jersey.

Scientists continue to track trouble spots by the density of local deer populations, and there are now many areas with hundreds of deer per square mile -- as many as 400. "Obviously, shooting deer around people's houses is a no-no," says Andrew Spielman, head of the laboratory of public health entomology at the Harvard School of Public Health. "So the population is exploding. This is the middle-class pestilence of our times, and it's really just at its early stages and growing rapidly." Animal-rights concerns have thwarted any major effort to scale back or relocate the deer population; so has disagreement over whether such efforts would be effective. Environmental health concerns have limited widespread chemical spraying to eliminate the deer tick, especially, for example, in areas that use well water.

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Hurricanes
The last hurricane to hit the continental USA was Irene in October 1999, but don't expect good fortune to hold out indefinitely. Scientists predict this season will be slightly above average: six to eight hurricanes in the Atlantic, vs. the usual six; perhaps three will be major, vs. the usual two. The season should peak from mid-August to the end of October. Florida actually accounts for less than half -- 59 -- of the 164 hurricanes in the continental USA from 1899 to 1998. Texas and North Carolina account for more, with a combined 64.

It's too early to say if a hurricane will hit this season. "Nobody can predict, this far in advance," says Richard Pasch, a hurricane specialist with NOAA. "Once a tropical cyclone forms, we're able to issue a routine advisory three days in advance."