You don't expect to be able to get INTO the house... do you expect to be able to get OUT of the house?

When the measly 6.8 Nisqually quake hit the Olympia, WA (2001) area (35-40 mi from me), I was having trouble walking through the house toward the door.

I'll bet not too many people in the whopper 9.2 Anchorage quake (1964) were doing anything but holding on to anything they could grab. It also produced a 70-ft tsunami (Belmont, CA has an elevation of 33 ft, although the east side of the Bay would get the major damage, although it would be interesting to see what kind of backwash the west side would get), and vertical land displacements of up to 38 ft.

Have you ever thought of relocating out of the Bay area?

If your storage space is where you live, and most people spend about half their day there, you've probably got close to a 50/50 chance of being there when the Big One hits. And if you are there, you'll probably be in roughly the same condition as your stuff: Mangled beyond recognition, which makes everything else moot; or you'll just have some injuries and so will your stored items. But your place might still be standing, in which case you'll be in clover. And at the mercy of the rest of your looter buds.

Unless you're in Foster City or one of the other cities built on fill. Then you'll just be part of the Bay debris.

But disasters can be really freaky, and there's just no way you can predict how the cards or buildings are going to fall. An east-west movement may just make it sway, a north-south shake could rip it in half and tear it down.

If you can't move away, I would collect food and water and camping gear and hope for the best. Sitting in a slightly crooked building with a lousy broken ankle and supplies really beats trying to be a crippled looter pushing a stolen walker. Trust me on this, okay?

You know what the folks here say: Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. And if the worst happens and you croak, you can take peace in the knowledge that some determined looters will probably get at least SOME of the stuff you stored.

Sue