>>> Lucy Jones was for more than a generation to go to prison in Los Angeles for information about earthquakes. She became the first city seismologist and risk advisor. Now, she's retired and she wrote a book about how people have handled national disasters through the centuries. She offers the opinion that the dreaded big one is not defined by numbers, but by the ability of a community to recover. Joining me is Doctor Lucy Jones, the author of the big ones. Welcome to the program. >> Thank you for having me. On the cover of the book is the picture of the LA coastline, the stories travel all the way back to the Mount Vesuvius eruption and Pompeii. Why did you take such a wide view of natural disasters in this book? >> I wanted to explore the range of human experience and the reality is that during the time that LA has been here, we have not experienced our big one. The closest was the flood of 1861 and 1862, but we are a small community at that time. This is a shared part of the human condition and there is a lot of similarities and how we have handled this and they reflect a lot about the fundamentals of human nature. >> The great flood in the 1860s has been the only disaster about LA, why did you want to focus on that one? >> It was the most catastrophic in the history of California. It killed one percent of the population at the time. This also destroyed one third of the taxable land. Even the great San Francisco earthquake did not come close to that level of destruction. It also exemplified the human tendency that we need to put out things from our minds that are too far in the past. I think most Californians did not know this happened. I had to take a study to understand what a big sled could be. I was quite astonished to discover this massive event had occurred. I am a fourth generation Southern Californians and had never heard of it. >> You have a slightly different definition of a big one in this book than we usually hear. It is not just about a disaster measurements so to speak, what you believe it defines a big one? >> A big one is about what happens to the human population, we have had huge earthquakes that have had relatively small social impact because they occurred under the water. The magnitude or whatever other major of size is not a human measurement. We are thinking about as a society are things that imperil our future. Human beings tend to be afraid of dying and disasters and when you talk about earthquake resilience, with everyone turns it into safety. Are we going to live through it? Most of us will live to the big earthquake. The question is whether or not the society does. I ended up looking at the events that change the nature of their society, that took Portugal from a major colonial power to a relatively minor country, that took the country of Iceland to be a nation of refugees is almost no one with a home. These type of fundamental shifts is what occurred. >> Of these casualties are limited in a big one in LA, what are those factors that could still bring about, the death of the city or fundamental change of the city with a catastrophe like this? >> I am afraid it could be quite likely because what I am worried about people giving up on LA and decided is not worth living here. The only years that Los Angeles is ever lost population within 71 and 72 and 94 and 95, two years after our largest earthquakes. These are not actually large earthquakes, they did not fundamentally disrupt life. The biggest event and we all lived through it, but you cannot get a shower or you have not had a shower in a month and your neighbor has not had a shower, and you have to spend hours each day getting enough water to drink by standing in a line run by FEMA, will you stay? Are you going to say that my high-tech job will be happy to have me telecommute from my parents house in Chicago? These restaurants and businesses will not be able to keep going. I'm worried about our economic future because the economics express the life and livelihood of our residents. >> From your book, what do you think is the most inspiring recovery that we could look to add how people came together and resurrected themselves from a disaster? >> The most recent one which is the 2011 earthquake by Northeast Japan, we all watched in real time as that tsunami spread across the region and killed 18,000 people. It destroyed most of the houses and town after town down the Japanese coast. I've had the opportunity to visit there a few times and the women's group brought me in because what is happening in that region is that there are a lot of young women whose families have been devastated and many of them lost husband or parents. There community is trying to survive and they step up and started doing things. They started resources and nonprofits. Motivated by helping their family, but one of the things that is happening there he is in a traditional part of Japan were women roles were quite prescribed, these young women are actually creating opportunities that would not have been possible before the disaster had so disrupted their society. They are growing into and learning to be leaders. This women's group brought me in as an example is a woman who had a career and family and could pull it off. I found myself incredibly moved by their stories that they have been able to create opportunities out of disaster. They are doing it for the sake of their communities. There are people who had moved away from the region because it was so stifling and now came back. Which is a Tokyo lifestyle matter compared to my home? They watched the way this community and multiple communities have turned to each other and are growing stronger because of it. They are revitalizing life in the community. I found this incredibly inspiring and it brought home to me the idea of what is at stake in our big one is not in our individual lives, it is our joint community and as someone who is a fourth generation Southern Californian who loves this community and wants it to be here for a while. I want Mike grandchildren to grow up here. Is this will happen we need to be ready for this event and not let us -- it drive us away, but it be something that brings us together. >> I've been speaking with Lucy Jones. Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you for having me.
Former U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones was the go-to person in Los Angeles for information about earthquakes for more than a generation. In 2014, she became L.A.’s first city seismologist and risk adviser.
Now retired, Jones has written a book about how people and communities have handled natural disasters through the centuries, reaching as far back as Mount Vesuvius’ destruction of Pompeii nearly 2,000 years ago. The book is called "The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us (and What We Can Do About Them)."
Despite Jones’ strong connection to California, the only local disaster she wrote about is the Great Flood of 1862, which killed one percent of the state’s population and destroyed one-third of its taxable land.
“A ‘Big One’ really is about what happens to the human population. We’ve had huge earthquakes that had relatively small social impact because they occurred under the water,” she said. “Most of us will live through the big earthquake, almost all of us. The question is whether our societies do. And so I ended up looking at events that really changed the nature of their society.”
Jones joins KPBS Midday Edition on Tuesday to discuss how those societies rebuilt after natural disasters and how California is preparing for its own “Big One.”
