Not sure how much if this is politics, since Indian Point is involved, but it's interesting nonetheless:

Earthquakes May Endanger New York More Than Thought

There was a made-for-TV movie a while back about a big earthquake hitting NYC. I remember thinking it was pretty preposterous. Maybe not. . .

So, does anyone in the NYC area specifically include an earthquake scenario when thinking about their preps? How about any sort of accident at Indian Point?

I felt one small earthquake while living in Manhattan. Just a quick jerk and that was about it. I was dumbfounded to watch the TV news that night and see that it was actually centered on the Upper East Side. Weird.

In many ways, if you live in NYC, you need to think of earthquakes more like someone who lives in Haiti versus someone from California. Think of how many really OLD, unreinforced masonry buildings there are in NYC. Building collapses are not uncommon events in NYC even during normal times.

Imagine what even a 5.0, especially if it lasted for a bit, could do to those buildings. Probably would kill or injure a lot of people due to getting bonked in the head as the bricks peeled off the building facades and rained down on the sidewalks below. Or remember that unbelievable building collapse on East 62nd back in 2006? The whole building--just rubble. Granted, there was a gas explosion involved, but the same explosion risk exists after an earthquake, too.

As a native Californian, I thought about the possibility of earthquakes there from time to time, but y'know, it's pretty darn hard to do much. Especially when you're already paying much of your paycheck for rent, and there's hardly any space to store a lot of stuff in your cramped apartment anyway. And water? It makes me laugh to think about it, but if everyone in the buildings I lived in stored, say, 20 gallons of water, just the added weight would probably bring the building down!

Then throw in the possibility of some Three Mile Island-type disaster into the mix--eek, that's messy to contemplate!

I remember a 2.3 or so here when I was a kid - interesting. Of course NYC has an advantage - the largest police and fire depts out there

I just learned within the last 2 years of the major fault that runs across Manhattan through Central Park.

There's been 2(?) minor seismic events within the last 5(?) years and a #3 about 10 years ago.

The area is part of the "Canadian Shield" and has very few fault lines, minor or major, and that inhibits the effects being felt by those on the surface.

I imagine liquefaction could turn a mediocre NY earthquake into an unimaginable disaster. If the ground itself becomes unstable, all bets are off. Wow, scary thought indeed.

NYC is on solid bedrock i would think the citys only worry might be the return of the glacier which went back to Canada only 10 or 12 thousand years ago to get and bring back more rocks..

Here is California, Coso Junction has experienced a 2.5, a 3.2, and a 3.3 earthquake in the last two days.

But I think you are right - New York does have its faults.

I agree.

My understanding is that much of NYC is sitting on bedrock and those places it isn't, at least for large buildings, they pounded pilings through the fill and overburden into the bedrock. Smaller buildings may have ended up on fill and liquefaction could be a problem for them. But the major buildings are, as I understand it, not going anywhere.

VERY little of NYC is build on Fill - and what is, usually has pilings that go to bedrock

There are some spots out in Queens that are on fill that would be an issue (remember all of Brooklyn and Queens is on a giant sandbar called Long Island)

Places that would have to worry include Flushing Meadows Park, the stuff built in the College Point Lowlands down where Flushing Airport was, believe it ot not, stuff near the intersection of Main St and Northern (The RKO Keiths is build on mud, but the building - at least as originally designed was sealed and will float) and other places built on fill

If I remember my Earth Science from high school, I think much of LI’s geological features are the result of a glacial moraine, especially along the North Shore.