Some places are more prone to hazards such as earthquakes, flooding and hurricanes, but there’s nowhere where the risk is zero. The good news is that humans can make good decisions to lower the odds of such hazards turning into disasters. Technology can help determine where to make investments to save the most lives.
Engineers like me tend to focus on tangible decisions related to how buildings are constructed – for example, the amount and location of steel reinforcement. Over the last several decades, I’ve conducted the world’s largest shake table tests, placing a full-size apartment building on a platform that simulates seismic activity, and I’ve led teams of experts to investigate earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods – but I’ve never become used to devastation like we are seeing in Morocco now.
As we are reminded by each disaster, mitigation is needed to make our homes, offices and schools safer and more resilient to earthquakes. Retrofitting buildings is expensive – and that cost represents a daunting challenge for developing nations like Morocco and Syria, as well as developed nations like Turkey – all three of which were devastated recently by major earthquakes.
And yet, I am optimistic because I know thousands of engineers around the world are working and collaborating to make earthquakes less deadly.
Disasters can happen anywhere.
Some places are more prone to hazards such as earthquakes, flooding and hurricanes, but there’s nowhere where the risk is zero. The good news is that humans can make good decisions to lower the odds of such hazards turning into disasters. Technology can help determine where to make investments to save the most lives.
Engineers like me tend to focus on tangible decisions related to how buildings are constructed – for example, the amount and location of steel reinforcement. Over the last several decades, I’ve conducted the world’s largest shake table tests, placing a full-size apartment building on a platform that simulates seismic activity, and I’ve led teams of experts to investigate earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods – but I’ve never become used to devastation like we are seeing in Morocco now.
Google has opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government