Portquakes

U.S. ports are the major entryways for international trade. Any damage to these exchange points could harm the country economically.

Ports are extremely vulnerable to earthquake damage because landings are often built on unstable ground that can lose strength as a result of shaking.

"Given the growth in international trade, we don't think seismic risks at ports have received the proper amount of attention," said Glenn J. Rix, a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "If a large portion of a major U.S. port such as Oakland or Los Angeles were out of service for a year because of an earthquake, there would be significant economic consequences for the United States."

When a 6.9 magnitude earthquake struck Kobe, Japan in 1995, the damaged port required two years and 8.6 billion dollars to repair.

Rix and his colleagues have developed a new project that aims to safeguard U.S. ports from similar damage by better managing earthquake risks.

"We learned an important lesson from the experience of Gulf Coast ports following Hurricane Katrina," Rix said. "The physical damage was minor compared to the impact of the displaced labor force on port operations, which emphasized the need to examine the entire port system."

--Sara Goudarzi

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Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology