By: Tyler Wielgosh
On November 30th, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Alaska at a depth of about 27 miles. This terrible natural disaster caused power outages, damage to roads and buildings, power outages and closures to schools, and office buildings fortunately nobody was killed but many people suffered non threatening injuries from the aftermath of this earthquake.
“Medicaid funds continue to be an issue despite the temporary closure of offices and to provide greater flexibility for federal officials in providing health aid” (weather.com) So according to the localists, they deal with at least 40,000 earthquakes a year so while that tragic event occured not to long ago, the people who were affected have to make sure that they’re going to be prepared. After the “mainshock” strikes, there were aftershock warnings that were alerted saying “Over the next week, there will be a 4% chance of one or more aftershocks that could be larger thsan the magnitude of 7.0 and within 12 hours following the major earthquake, over 100 aftershocks have been reported with a 2.5 magnitude.” Because of the damages that has been done from this earthquake, it will take some time for the cleanup crew to repair the damaged roads and bridges becoming a major infrastructure damage to the homes, buildings, roads.
Alaska has also suffered a stronger earthquake in 1964 with a 9.2 magnitude killing 130 people which is the most strongest earthquake ever recorded in the US. While dealing with the aftermath from this tragic event property damage was estimated to about $116 million. Not only Alaska was affected by this natural disaster as well as Canada and California were affected by the aftershocks from the earthquake in Alaska causing huge tsunami’s killing hundreds of people and destroying everything.
While people all around the globe deal with natural disasters and damages that have been done to the environment, the earthquake would not cause as much damage as how the 1964 earthquake would have been. As an economical standpoint because there weren’t as much damage the repair costs wouldn’t be as much as most people would think the costs would be.
Works Cited
History.com, A&E Television Networks, www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment/1964-alaska-earthquake.
“Alaska Earthquake Center | Earthquakes in Alaska.” 1964 M9.2 Great Alaskan Earthquake | Alaska Earthquake Center, earthquake.alaska.edu/.
Fritz, Angela. “Alaska Earthquake: Incredible Images of Where the Ground Ripped in Half.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 3 Dec. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2018/12/03/alaska-earthquake-incredible-images-where-ground-ripped-half/?utm_term=.bacd775ffaf0.
“Over 1,000 Aftershocks Shake Alaska After Major Earthquake Strikes Anchorage.” The Weather Channel, The Weather Channel, weather.com/news/news/2018-12-03-alaska-earthquake-1000-aftershocks.
The earthquake up in Alaska will for sure affect the economy because the government would have to pull out money to fix the roads, houses, power lines, and many more. The farmland up there is destroyed now because since the tectonic plates moved there will be more voids in the ground. This has a huge effect on the industries up there also because if you take the Alaska railroad or any tourist railroad up there they have to deal with the rail being ripped in half or the rocks underneath the tracks moved so now there is a washout. But that earthquake didn’t effect just Alaska but it also affected the whole United States because if a disaster hits one of the states this bad the rest of the states would send resources to help thus creating a shortage in resources. In Fact it also effected a little bit of the canadian cost because they would feel the aftershocks but not as bad as Alaska did.
ReplyDeleteYa not all natural disasters have a big impact on places like earthquakes do but the higher the magnitude the more damage and civilian casualties there could be. The effects of the economy has do to these earthquakes is that so many people have lost their jobs do to the destruction of the company and do to the company having to let go of people to do repairs.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that earthquakes do such a thing is crazy. It would have to cost at least 10 million dollars each time an earthquake occurs. How do they get this money for repairs? Like you said, the aftershock also affected Canada and California, which would cause them to lose a lot of money on repairs as well.
ReplyDeleteI don’t really know where the economics are in this topic because you only mention economics in the last sentence. This feels more like a blog post about the earthquake rather than the economical damage it had done which is what I assume you were talking about. You could talk more about the economical damage it caused like how the roads, bridges, and office buildings being closed will damage the economy by not allowing people to get to work or shipments to make it to their destinations and how that causes a ripple effect in its economy.
ReplyDelete-Noah
I agree that earthquakes can tremendously impact the economy since they are so unpredictable. Other natural disasters, such as hurricanes, you can prepare for, but earthquakes can happen anytime and anywhere. It all just depends on how strong the earthquake is since that will determine how much damage is done to the area. Thankfully, this earthquake was not too powerful, but it defiantly could've been much worse. If something like this were in happen in a more populated area such as San Francisco where devastating earthquakes have happened before, the tourism industry within the economy will take a huge toll.
ReplyDeleteThis is especially strange in an issue with much less infrastructure; if theoretically there was a fault line in middle of nowhere Nebraska, nobody would care if an earthquake happened because the issue is when there are massive high rises and skyscrapers that can fall on each other. There just aren't things to break and cause gas leaks, except for that pipeline, but theoretically something like that is earthquake proof because of the nature of the construction. The other side of the coin is that because there isn't that much infrastructure, the 1 road that runs through the state gets displaced. But, I imagine that everyone in Alaska rides around on giant snowmobiles, or flies their airplane to work, so the impact of a busted road network is less damaging.
ReplyDelete