By Russ Moore
Here’s a single-question, multiple-choice test to determine the futureof civilization as we know it: What catastrophe is most likely todevastate the population and economy of the United States earlyin the next millennium? Nuclear holocaust? Y2K bug? Famine?Barry Goodno, a structural engineer in Tech’s School of Civiland Environmental Engineering, has an unexpected answer:“None of the above.”Instead, he says, think …
Barry Goodno is one of several Tech professors who specialize in earthquakes. For most of 30 years, he’s been researching and preparing for a worst-case scenario.
To understand what could happen, first consider the events of Feb. 7, 1812. The United States of America was 24 years old. President Thomas Jefferson had completed the Louisiana Purchase less than a decade before, and Lewis and Clark’s expedition was still the stuff of parlor talk. Savannah was Georgia’s most populated city, with about 5,500 residents; Missouri was considered Indian territory, and Americans were only just beginning to migrate westward into a largely uncharted frontier.
At about 9:45 that Monday morning, the largest earthquake that has ever struck the continental United States destroyed the sparsely inhabited town of New Madrid, Mo. The scope of this earthquake makes even the great San Francisco quake of 1906 pale in comparison; the New Madrid quake shook every square inch of the United States. Large pieces of furniture moved in Cincinnati (population 2,500). Church bells rang in Boston. A large lake suddenly appeared in Tennessee. The Mississippi River appeared to reverse course, and witnesses as far north as Canada and as far south as the Gulf Coast recorded the Earth moving.
The population of the Mississippi Valley that day is estimated to have been between 10,000 and 15,000 people. Remarkably few were killed, mostly the victims of collapsing brick chimneys.
Today, seismologists comparing damage reports have calculated the magnitude of the New Madrid quake to have been between 8.0 and 8.8 on the Richter scale. If such a quake were to strike today, the epicenter would affect an area bisected by the Mississippi River and inhabited by nearly 10 million people in four states. And unlike the early 1800s, today the Mississippi is a nationally critical conduit for commerce, crossed by barge traffic, railroad and interstate bridges, and fiber-optic landlines.
Recent earthquakes across the globe indicate the level of damage that is possible. The Chi-Chi earthquake that struck Taiwan Sept. 21 measured 7.6 on the Richter scale. Though the epicenter was more than 100 miles from the island’s capital of Taipei, 2,100 people were killed, 9,000 injured, 80,000 left homeless—and more than 12,000 buildings were seriously damaged.
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| Goodno and his earthquake team now have an opportunity to test building durability in the nation's largest and best-constructed engineering lab. |
For reasons yet unknown, earthquakes along the New Madrid fault affect a much larger area—between 10 and 30 times greater—than the more familiar and more frequent earthquakes in California. As a result, the consequences of an 8.0 mid-America temblor would be devastating.
“The truth is, we’re in big trouble,” said Goodno. “A mid-America earthquake would probably cause the greatest loss of life outside of war in our nation’s history. The economic disruption would be tens of billions, and it could take decades to recover.”
Though not a popular scenario in movies or with the public, the sobering realities of a mid-America earthquake prompted the National Science Foundation to establish the Mid-America Earthquake Center (MAEC), one of three regional earthquake centers. Goodno is the center’s Southeast regional director, and he also coordinates MAEC’s Essential Facilities Program.
Goodno’s research is but the first “baby-step” in preparing the region to cope with a devastating earthquake by preparing for emergency services to survive it. “We define essential facilities as those structures necessary for post-earthquake emergency response and disaster management,” he said. “The list includes emergency management centers, police and fire stations, hospitals, and potential shelters—including school buildings.”
The vast majority of buildings along the fault are older unreinforced masonry or URM structures, which is unfortunately the type of facility most likely to be destroyed or damaged in an earthquake. Observers in Turkey, including one of Goodno’s colleagues from Tech, Donald White, confirm that URM buildings are the proverbial equivalent of the biblical “house upon the sand.”
Goodno and MAEC researchers have performed essential facility audits for Carbondale, Ill., and Sikeston, Mo. The studies list each community’s essential facilities, analyze their structural weaknesses, and recommend costs for retrofitting them. The scholars also work with communities to help determine how to balance these costs against other pressing government expenses. Considering that MAEC covers the entire Southeast and Midwest, the picture of how much work there is to be done becomes much more clear.
Goodno is not put off by the magnitude of the task, however. Instead, he is motivated by the engineering challenges and encouraged by the thought of lives being saved. “Bill Sangster offered me the chance in the mid-’70s to come to Georgia Tech and get something started,” he said. “We’ve been able to develop research programs and curricula that didn’t exist before, all of which were badly needed.” Sangster is now retired as Tech’s dean of Engineering.
Goodno got in on the ground floor of what has become an internationally recognized team of earthquake experts. Today, when earthquakes strike anywhere in the world, local and national media frequently call on colleagues Tim Long (Geophysical Sciences) and Roberto Leon and Larry Kahn (Civil and Environmental Engineering). Goodno is pleased with the visibility these experts generate for Tech, while keeping a lower profile himself.
“It’s a pleasure to work at Tech because of the quality of my students. They’re like sponges,” he said. “And we’ve made huge strides in the last 20-plus years, not all of which have found their way into practice.”
In fact, the structural-engineering concepts researched and developed at Tech could be very lucrative if patented—a fact that doesn’t alter Goodno’s approach to his work.
“I don’t file for patents on designs pointed to by our research. We publish and keep working. There’s still so much to do. Though we’ve made big strides, science is still very new at this business. It’s like peeking in through a pinhole.”
In an effort to better learn how to make structures earthquake-resistant, Goodno has been shaking real buildings for years now, going back to the construction of Atlanta landmarks like Colony Square, Tower Place and the Georgia Power Building. In the ’70s, he collaborated with Aerospace Engineering Professor Jim Craig to build a device 9 feet square, loaded with 1 ton of bricks. Goodno and Craig would place the device on the upper floors, shake the building for a few seconds, then turn the device off and measure “damping”—how long it takes the building to come back to rest.
The research has always been valuable, as have been Tech’s computer models of structures under stress. But the accuracy of computer modeling is difficult to document, and while the scarcity of earthquakes is good for inhabitants, it is tough on science. So Goodno and his colleagues are understandably excited about having the largest and best structural engineering lab in the country at Georgia Tech. The new large-scale Structural Engineering Laboratory was dedicated last April a few blocks from the campus on Northside Drive.
How big is it?
When the first test is conducted next year, an actual two-story building will be “loaded” repeatedly. Goodno and the MAEC researchers will test unreinforced masonry-wall structures and light steel-frame structures, developing performance-based design concepts for retrofitted structures, and comparing predicted and observed behaviors under simulated earthquake conditions.
“Basically, we’ll see how well our computer predictions match reality,” said Goodno, “and that pinhole should get a little larger.”
Russ Moore is a freelance writer living in Atlanta.