The Trouble of Building Where Faults Collide

Gabby Markola                                                                                                                    12/20/13

Earth Science C Block Odd                                                                                            Ms. Davies

Nagourney, Adam. "The Trouble of Building Where Faults Collide." NYTimes.com. The New York Times, 30 Nov. 2013. Web. 14 Dec. 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/01/us/the-troubles-of-building-where-faults-collide.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1387557725-xabGhdyHty6kX5H8PI6bHg>.

Adam Nagourney’s article entitled “The Troubles of Building Where Faults Collide” describes the problems being encountered by people of California when it comes to buildings.  Architects, business people, and even regular civilians all have something to say about the difficulty of having certain structures in specific parts of California, especially Los Angeles.  A new project, known as the Millennium towers, was proposed to transform Hollywood into a “bustling urban hub,” but many concerns about the faults in that area have prevented the project from beginning construction.  A lawsuit was filed because of how dangerous they are.  This includes the fact that they could fall within 50 feet of a fault line, which violates the earthquake safety law that was put in place in California after the 1971 earthquake in San Fernando Valley that reached a 6.6 on the Richter scale.  While many people argue that it is too dangerous to build any new buildings, many still believe that new buildings should be made.  One of the Millennium developers, Phillip E. Aarons, said that homeowners are just creating “earthquake hysteria” and basing all of their evidence of conjectures.  Mitch O’Farrell, a city council member who voted for the towers, emphasized the point that hall of Los Angeles has fault lines running through it, but that does not mean that all development should be stopped.  He claims that at this point people are waiting for an earthquake that has not even been truly identified.  The Millennium Towers would not be the only buildings to pose a threat to the city; buildings that have been up for many years are also very dangerous.  Studies by the University of California and the Los Angeles Times came to the conclusion that about 1,500 concrete buildings that had been built before the year 1975 are vulnerable to collapse under the force of an earthquake.  Usually heated discussions surrounding the safety of buildings comes right after an earthquake hits, which is why scientists, like Lucile Jones, are impressed with the fact that huge tragedies did not need to occur in order from some thought to be put into the problem.  In terms of the actual building of the Millennium Towers, more research needs to be done before a decision is made.  Many people are asking for more inspections, but that would be very costly for the city.  Although the city of Los Angeles has not come to a final decision about building the Millennium Towers, they seem to be making great headway in this struggle with the faults of their land.

Many times people do not think about the building they are standing in; they do not worry about whether it is going to fall at any second or collapse on them.  People in this society put their faith in architects and builders to make sure that no one gets hurt, but in many cases this is a hard job.  With the added trouble of earthquake faults, their job is almost impossible.  This article displayed the conflicts humans have with the natural world.  Although humans have accomplished many things when dealing with nature, we are still not above it.  We cannot completely protect ourselves from the natural disasters of our world.  We just have to do our best and hope that that is enough to keep everyone safe.  This realization made me choose the article.  It put the world in perspective.  I was more aware of the fact that humans may think they dominate the world, but nature still does what it has to do and we cannot stop it.

The article itself was very informative.  It took the issue of Californian earthquakes, that most people know about, and showed how it really affects the people.  The author showed both sides of the argument and gave many people’s opinions, whether it be an esteemed scientist or a home-owner in the area.  One critique would be the fact that it was constantly jumping around between the two sides of the argument.  Usually, that helps the reader compare as they are reading, but in this case it made it a bit confusing because some of the information was being restated.  Other than that, it was a very interesting article and I am looking forward to finding out what the city of Los Angeles will do with the new Millennium Towers and the old, unstable buildings.