Tour the Hayward Fault

Last night I attended a lecture by Kevin Starr, the eminent California historian, on the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. One of his main points was that while the bulk of the common people behaved admirably, the leadership of the city had a collective nervous breakdown during the quake and for years afterward. Look around at your leaders today, locally and regionally. With 1906 and more recent catastrophes in mind, are you assured that your leaders will do the right thing?

I ask because when I toured the Hayward fault with a group of geologists, I found myself foreseeing the details of the coming earthquake there. Look around you and imagine it in ruins.