Customer Reviews

A Dangerous Place: California's Unsettling Fate

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

What a great guy Marc Reisner was. He wrote A Dangerous Place: California's Unsettling Fate as he was dying of cancer, and it's not just a benchmark of California's environmental history but also a profound and emotional valedictory effort. Living as I do within ¼ mile of the grumbling and growling Hayward Fault, I found Reisner's projections of the cataclysmic effects of the Big One to be more than unsettling. Those of us who are priviledged or doomed to live in this glorious state cannot fail to take heed of the picture he paints of the likely events surrounding our upcoming tectonic hiccups, belches, and sneezes.
The book is divided into 3 sections. The first retells Californias environmental history from the era of Junipero Serra's mission system right up to our own freeway system. The middle section deals with the fundamentals of plate tectonics. But it's that 3rd section that looks forward to (shudder) a hypothetical eruption of the Hayward Fault in 2005 that is most gripping. Yikes.
Sayonara to a great environmentalist and author.

A 7.2m earthquake ruptures on the Hayward Fault one February day in California and the chaos begins. Unreinforced buildings topple to the ground, freeway overpasses buckle, and the cantilever structure of the Bay Bridge falls into the bay below. Several thousand people are killed by the event. More troubles ensue as the fault destroys canals, power lines, sewer lines, railroad tracks, and highways (all built across the fault) that could bring help and aid to the dazed survivors. Even the airports are knocked out of commission as their runways, built on bay mud) are turned to jello by the ground motion. Loma Prieta was a whimper compared to what the Hayward fault has unleashed.

This is a fictional scenario of course, yet it leans heavily on what could be. The events are based on long conversations the author had with experts in the earthquake field. Anyone who has read Cadillac Desert knows the power of Marc Reisner's ability to analyze and explore a topic.

The only "con" for me was the book was too short! It was so gripping I couldn't put it down but I still wanted more. A book double or triple the size would've been fine.

Please also note, that the book is being published 3 years after Mr. Reisner's death. As such, it does not seem the book was in it's absolute final form prior to being released. There are only three chapters and they don't seem quite balanced. He also launches into his scenario (the last half of the book) rather abruptly, requiring the reader to be alert. I didn't mark it down in terms of a rating as I was expecting this (and the quality of the material is high enough to overlook this oddity) but I mention it here to warn the reader.

Still, while it lacks in polish is more than compensated for in it's urgency. If you've been wasting time getting your earthquake kit together stop fooling yourself. These things will happen and what's more, it could be worse than what's described in this book. Something every Californian should read.

This book is required reading for all, not only Californians. We are talking here about the BIG ONE, the inevitable next large earthquake to hit the San Andreas fault system. It is not a question of if it will happen, but when -- next year, in 2010, or perhaps not until the year 2110? When it happens, it will undoubtedly be the largest national disaster on record, killing thousands, and destroying buildings and infrastructure with a cost of...well, some dollar figure best written with scientific notation.

The book is organized into three parts: Part 1 summarizes the colonization history of southern California, L.A., and San Fransciso, explaining how the cities came to be and how half of the western population somewhat suprisingly now resides therein; Part 2 briefly discusses the basics of plate tectonics, earthquakes, and the numerous geographic and geologic hazards unique to California; and Part 3 is a fictional diary of the author's day set in the near future (February 28, 2005), the day a large quake occurs on the Hayward Fault on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay. Parts 1 and 2 are both informative and well written, but it is Part 3 that is particularly disturbing; the entire scenario is drawn from experiences of past earthquakes and the author's local knowledge, and the description is quite plausible. The consequences of such an earthquake are difficult to envision, but I believe that you will find Mr. Reisner's fictional treatment really hits the mark.

I read one of his previous books, "Cadillac Desert" and found it politically one-sided and tough to finish. This book is different. It is short (181 pages, I finished it in two sittings), very well-written, and carefully researched (as a professional geologist, even I was unaware of the consequences a large quake in San Francisco would potentially have to the water supply of Los Angeles).

Sadly, the young Marc Reisner passed away in 2000, so this will likely be his last book. That is truly unfortunate! I highly recommend this book to anyone with a even a passing interest in U.S. history, science, and/or politics, and especially to those of you who live on the left coast.

One thing for sure, as noted by the well-known philosopher Will Durant: "Civilization exists by geologic consent, subject to change without notice."

As a geoscience educator, I'm often looking for new books that will engage freshman, introductory geology students, and I can think of no better way to compliment this book than to say that I'm going to require it for all my lower division classes.

Reisner doesn't reiterate ideas from Cadillac Desert, but rather infuses his understanding of the interaction of water, geology, and people into this new area. I learned a lot; for example, I didn't have a full appreciation of the precarious nature of the Delta and its role in supplying the southern half of the state with water.

The book was written pre-9/11, and one cannot help nodding bitterly at the accuracy of Reisner's descriptions of public reaction to, say, the deaths of thousands of citizens.

It's a terrible loss for us that Reisner won't write another book, and indeed didn't flesh this one out as thoroughly as his presentation in Cadillac Desert. As an example, the scope and inadequacies of legal changes to building permitting after the 1971 San Fernando earthquake could use further elaboration. Such omissions don't distract from the book--indeed, they may enhance its readibility--but I'm sure had he time, Reisner would have delved in more detail into many subjects. Nonetheless, this book should be a startling and resource-rich guide for the cataclysmic event that is guaranteed to happen in the near future.

Think of a writer with an ability to spin a convincing tale of fright, and Stephen King might come to mind. But after reading "A Dangerous Place: California's Unsettling Fate," you might want to add Marc Reisner to that list.

In this compact volume, Reisner first provides an overview of California's spectacular development from a largely unsettled desert to the most populous state in the nation. The desire for wealth drove the growth of the state's two great metropolitan areas. While gold fever was behind San Francisco's rapid rise, and land speculation fueled Los Angeles' frenetic expansion, the result was the same--two great communities situated atop extremely violent seismic zones.

Reisner recounts some of the most spectacular earthquakes of the 19th and 20th centuries in this region. But most frightening of all, at least from this reader's viewpoint, is his account of a disaster yet to be. In a vivid, yet fact-based account Reisner describes a quake that is NOT a worst-case scenario...yet it dwarfs its predecessors in destruction of life and property. Thousands of lives are lost, the damage totals soar into the billions, and even though the site for this hypothetical quake is the bay area, we learn why it will almost certainly have catastrophic consequences for southern California's water supply.

Reisner was apparently still working on this book at the time of his death from cancer, so this may be why the ending seems to fall short of a great summing up. Still, his message is clear. When--and it's truly a question of when, not if this disaster strikes--we will face little choice but to rebuild and go on. Our investment in these places is too great to do otherwise. We need to take his cautionary tale to heart, and be prepared as much as we can be for the enormity of the task ahead.

This is a much different book than the typical disaster book as we've seen such as Hurricane Andrew,The Great Chicago Fire or the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.
Mark does three things in this book:
He gives us a history of the rapid growth in people ,strucrures and infrastructure from almost a wilderness in the early 1800's to the present time.Then he gives us a history of the earthquakes and the resulting deaths and destruction.Thirdly,he tells us what can be expected if a major earthquake occurs along the Hayward Fault,which runs under Oakland.
All the ingredients are in place for a disaster that could well exceed anything imaginable.There seems to be little that can be done to prevent this catastrophe short of a complete and permanent vacating of the area.It appears that most who live and work in this area are well aware of the possibility but are committed to stay put and hope for the best.
I guess the author summed it up with this:
"Daily life makes one forget about it."
Maybe it isn't any different than when people live under the threat of a Nuclear attack.However;the thing about earthquakes is that they are certain;the only uncertainty is when and where.
Though this book gives little to hope for,it does give some sobering thoughts. All one can do is hope and pray for the best.

Like Cadillac Desert, this book was meticulously researched and very revealing about the nature of those who originally went west. It led me to an uncomfortable realization that most of us Californians are the descendents of either scheisters, crooks, or ignorant optimists. Like in classic plays, the viewer can't ignore the introduction of a gun in the first scene, knowing that before the play is over it will be fired. Reisner introduces so many elements in the first two chapters that his final fictional scenario of 'the gun going off' is almost unnecessary. The discomfort of knowing the tenious foundation (literally) that this state is built on is almost enough to make a complete story. His future scenario of a 7.2 hitting the Hayward fault in 2006, though very plausible, is reminiscent of many similar sci-fi cataclysms. The details of individual auto accidents and specific buildings that are to collapse, somehow takes away a little from the overall urgency of the book. I give five stars to the history and research, but only three to the first person fictionsl account of 'the big one'. In spite of that, the book does hit its mark in conveying the fact that California, has been and always will be a dangerous place.

This will make me sound like a bad guy, but the untimely death of Marc Reisner lead to the very undeveloped nature of this book. This was surely a work in progress when he passed away from cancer in 2000. The book has the potential to be an environmentalist powerhouse of investigative reporting, like Reisner's masterpiece "Cadillac Desert." California in general offers the kind of story that Reisner mastered in the other book, as much of the state and its civilization are living on borrowed time and very unnatural social constructs. The state faces two potential catastrophes: running out of fresh water, and of course the inevitable BIG ONE - the ultimate earthquake that will ruin the state.

This book opens in Los Angeles, a megalopolis in a dismal location with zero natural advantages that can naturally support the population. L.A. would be little more than a dusty crossroads without 150 years of federal subsidies and gargantuan engineering schemes to import water, especially from Northern California. Meanwhile, that area has its own threatened megalopolis, as the San Francisco Bay area is just waiting for the big earthquake that will hit sooner or later. In addition to structural mayhem and wildfires, such a disaster would also devastate the water supply for both urban areas.

The problem here is that all of the above issues are covered convincingly, but merely in essay form with no notes or supporting bibliography. Reisner also did not get to the long-term financial and sociological catastrophes that would result from the disaster, which would have made this book far stronger. Meanwhile, much of the book is interspersed with a fictional account of the Big One that is mostly a doomsday scenario. It's a plausible story but indicates a lack of focus for the book overall. Sadly, Reisner was unable to deliver the powerhouse book that this subject promises, and of which he was surely capable. [~doomsdayer520~]

Clearly, the first part of this book was based on research done for "Cadillac Desert" and focuses on the history of growth and water supplies for San Francisco and LA. However, the second and third sections are new: the second section covers the vulnerability of these water supplies to earthquakes (many earthquake faults cross where the water supply lines are built, The third section is a quite realistic scenario of what would happen in the Bay Area in the event of a 7.2 (I think) earthquake. The book is very readable.

A Dangerous Place by Marc Reisner is a difficult book to review - even though it contains the eloquent prose a reader expects from the author of the classic Cadillac Desert, it also represents an incomplete effort due to the author's untimely death. That said - and 4 stars assigned - let's move on to why this book is worth reading.

Marc Reisner has once again nailed the situation on the head - California, had we known then what we know now, was a really cruddy place to put a heavily populated state. The most populous cities in California either sit next to potentially dangerous faults or over top of them. [When I started teaching 20 years ago, the only known nearby fault to my high school was the Whittier fault - now my earthquake unit is far more exciting given the fact that we now know of two blind thrust faults - the Puente Hills and the Elysian Park - that lie beneath the high school!] Reisner makes the case that many California cities are very expensive ruins waiting to happen. Reisner's main focus in the back 2/3rds of the book is the Bay Area, where three main faults - the San Andreas, the Calaveras, and the Hayward - run directly under areas full of buildings that still have not been brought up to current code and will not withstand the next big quake. Lucy Jones, seismologist, and her colleagues, like to point out "earthquakes don't kill people, buildings do!" Part III of the book is a well-developed fiction of what the next Hayward fault earthquake might cost California and the nation. [I went to Hillside Elementary in Berkeley [no longer a public school] for 1st and 2nd grades, which sits directly on a bench cut in the Berkeley Hills by the Hayward fault.] This section has bothered a lot of readers, but the scenario is accurate and I suspect, had Reisner lived, there would have been a Part IV or an Epilogue to put a more conclusive ending to the book. The book also lacks an index. [I'm unaware of whether this situation was rectified or not in the paperback.]

This book, warts and all, can serve a valuable purpose - start a dialog among Californians and other folks in the United States about what to do about big cities near dangerous faults. We can't move them like we can a small town along the Mississippi River that has been destroyed by a flood or summer homes that have been washed off of a barrier island. And it should be noted that some of us live in California with our eyes very wide open [and this included Reisner himself]. Reisner didn't live long enough to witness the destruction of parts of Manhattan on 9/11/01 or the mashing down of Florida by 4 hurricanes in the summer and fall of 2004. One wonders what the conclusion of the book might have been in light of those disasters.