Precious seconds: Increasing the amount of warning time offers hope for ... - Houston Chronicle

Under quieter news circumstances, we'd all likely be more focused on the magnitude 6.3 earthquake that has caused extensive loss of life and property damage in Christchurch, New Zealand.

As the world turns in late February 2011, however, this natural disaster must settle for a place in public awareness behind several human-generated earthquakes — political and cultural rumblings across Africa and the Middle East; domestic political temblors erupting in places like Madison, Wis.

The quake that hit Christchurch, a city of 325,000 on New Zealand's South Island, was actually an aftershock from a magnitude 7.0 quake last September, scientists say. Casualties number in the hundreds, and property damage totals in the tens of billions of dollars.

That noted, and duly grieved, we can be thankful that New Zealand isn't Haiti. Unlike that Caribbean island nation, New Zealand is a stable, first-world economy with a modern infrastructure. Indeed, the country boasts what are considered the world's most earthquake-attuned building codes. Alas, the recent quake struck in an area with many pre-World War II structures.

Such a disaster reminds us once more of the vulnerability of so many areas of this country to earthquakes. Our country's entire West Coast lives with this uncertainty, as do areas in the New Madrid fault zone in the nation's Midwest region. In recent years, scientists have re-evaluated earthquake risks in the New York City area and placed them at a higher level. That is a lot of Americans potentially at risk.

We who live on the Gulf Coast are spared these perils, but we well understand the important role advance warning can play in limiting loss of life and property damage. In hurricane zones such as ours, residents have the luxury of hours, and sometimes days, to prepare for these powerful storms. Post-Hurricane Ike, the need to heed these warnings is widely understood.

On the other hand, earthquakes strike virtually without notice. Every second counts.

So we notice a hopeful development - promising technology called QuakeGuard that would give residents in earthquake zones added seconds of warning that could make all the difference. A group of local governments in the Palm Springs, Calif., area has recently installed 120 of the devices. This is our hope for the future: Adding precious seconds of warning to save lives.