Interesting you can vote for them and they will make their way to the top of the list. If youre considering supporting our book store by purchasing a copy of our of tonights featured book, click on the green publish button below the viewer screen. Youll be redirect to our website and you can complete your purchase and our next Virtual Event is scheduled for tomorrow, august 28th with john weiner and you learn more but our Upcoming Events on our website and on crowdcast. Let me introduce our speakers for tonight. Susan hough is a Research Seismologist at the Us Geological survey in pass dean nark caches served an editor and contributor for many journals and a contributing editor to geotimes magazine and has formerly served on the board of directors of Seismological Society of america and the Southern California earthquake center. And she is the author of five poocks including arc shaking science, what we know and dont know but earthquakes. Joining her tonight is henry fountain. Henry is a writer who covers explaining the innovations needed to overcome it. For ten years he wrote about research finding from across the world of science and observatory, a weekly column in science times. The author of the great quake about the 1964 alaskan earthquake and with that ill turn the screen over to our speakers. He enjoy the talk. Thank you. Hi. Great to be here. I want to thank romans and henry for being here. Im excited about this event. I live not far from vroman but im living in a Virtual World but its my Favorite Book store and henry is one of my favorite reporters and i when i the title of my book came to me one day and i told henry that i had not consciously rifted awe of this become title but its possible it was in my subconscious and bubbled out but i encourage everybody if youre interested in earthquakes and good science book, check out both the great quake and the great quake debate. His book is a lot of fun focuses on the 1964 earthquake in alaska. So, thank you no everyone out there who is tuning in. I think we have some people from a was away so thats great. I know theres a lot going on in the world. Some of it good, a lot not so good, so i appreciate everybody tuning in. And we look forward to leaving room for q a at the end. To get the ball rolling, i was going to read just couple of pages for a few minutes to start off, and then move to a conversation between me and henry and then leave time for q a at the end. So i guess theres an ask a question tab hopefully at the bottom if you have any questions. So, i was going to start if you do have the book by chance, im going to start reading on page 160, so to set the stage, where i start reading the 1925 san Santa Barbara quake struck and caused damage and scientist trying to make the case for significant earthquake hazard in los angeles, used that as an example of the type of dam that can occur and Business Leaders were pushing back. So this is and then the quake wake was to some extent a teachable moment for scientists to make the case but the lost after a fewer months, started to lose momentum. And willis stepped forward at that point. So, just jumping in, in the middle of things, whatever understanding had been worked out between hari wood and local Business Leaders in Southern Californiain 1923, willis distant in the San Francisco by a area never signed on to the deal. In the words of hi historian carl henry, by the end of 1925, quote, willis decided to embark on a new strategy. He would scare californians by not only pointing backward at the recent seismic destruction and predicting a catastrophic earthquake much large than the Santa Barbara shock would soon strike california and his prediction was based to some extent on a result that had come out from the geoget rick survey. After the survey result became known in 1923, scientist like wood avoided making overly alarmist public statements. In addition to having been specifically cautioned but public statements, wood new that analysis of early data could be an imprecise science. The result questions were in fact preliminary, estimated from triangulation measurements not properly connected the the larger regional triangulation survey. Moreover, scientist would have been reluctant to go public with a scientific result that raid concerned but did not support a specific forecast, let alone a precise prediction, also wood has written in his 1916 article, quote, at what time future shocks will occur we do not know, especially in any precise way but we know that since 1769, no half century has passed without the occurrence of at least one great earthquake in the region. He was wrong but that by the way. The average points conclusively to greater expectable frequency. However close prediction of the occurrence of the day or hour, even the month or year, can not be proximate mated as yet. He was right. With the u. S. Coast and geodebt rick results they failed dilemms an apparently sound result raise concerns but on the other the result was uncertain to some extent in and the result did not imply any specific time frame or even a quantifiable distributingal statistical forecast. Willis knew that a regional buildup of strain would be released eventually in a large earthquake and the relatively modest Santa Barbara quake had not been that earthquake. Unlike wood, willis had spoken publicly to a limited extent but the buildup of strain before the Santa Barbara earthquake struck and that led to the lore he predicted predicted the Santa Barbara earthquake. He latched on to the survey result, pointing to the results he told dailey palo alto leaders among others in november 1925 a large earthquake in the southland was nigh. No one knows whether it will be one year or ten years before a severe earthquake comes. He said but when it does come, it will come suddenly, and those who are not prepared will suffer. In the earthquake business there is a fine line between saying enough to get people to take earthquake hazard seriously and being overtly alarmist and either direction from the line unfortunate things happen. In one direction the public decisionmakers egg nor warnings and the other people might panic for fail to take action. Were all doomed. Whats the point. Starts to be a danger of crying wolf too often. Now as in willis day, some individual flirt more closely with that line than others. In the statements he made in november of 1925, willis did more than flirt. Quote, no one knows whether it well be one year or ten years. In fantastic then as now no one knew whether it would be one year or ten years or 100 years. The modern reader can view willis word with the benefit of almost a century of hindsight. Damaging earthquakes did strike the Greater Los Angeles area, including not only the one that would mostly put an end to the great quake debate and moderately damaging earthquake in whittier in 1987 and larger temblor that struck the san fern san fernando valley. Yet in the earthquake that willis warned about, great earthquake in Southern California, rivaling the 1906 San Francisco earthquake did not occur within three years or ten years 90 years of 1925. When a scientist dances with or oversteps that vanishing fine line the media which is called on to translate scientist statements into actual english issue variably and not up together unreasonably drops any finally nuanced qualifications. Headlines are designed to grab the readers attention with less room for subtlety than a modern twitter tweet. Willis words soon found theyre way spa the national media, the New York Times, for example, published an article title, quite, professor willis predicts los angeles tremors. Los angeles were or its immediate vicinity the article began will experience a severe earthquake probably more violent than that in San Francisco in 1906, in one to ten years, dr. Baily willis said. The article went on to repeat the lore that willis, quote, stated three years ago that Santa Barbara would feel severe earth tremors, prophecy fulfilled in the past summer. Over the years following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake the great quake debate in Southern California had at various times simmered and stewed and flaired, with willis public words in late 1925 it exploded. I was going to leave it to everybody to read more but the debate that played out. Thats one side of the debate. You read there. Basically, right . Well, so mr. Hill as well, or dr. Hill issue guess. , so i really have the book kind of evolves into intertwined biographies of the two protagnies, one was baily willis who ended up on his own side of the vanishingly fine line and the other was robert hill who landed on the other side, so hill was the skeptic, willis was the crusader. And when i started working on the book i was interested in the debate itself because theres a couple of different takes on it that you can read about but dont quite agree so i was curiouser what the real story was, and i thought i would introduce hill and willis briefly and then move on to the debate and the more i got into their lives, the more i realized a really fascinating individuals they were. I agree. Theres a lot of things [loss of audio] you can delve into both people equally really. The richness of whatever archival material you found is remarkable. And as we talk about this theyre both scientists obviously and quite renowned scientists and yet theyre both very human and particularly hill reminds me of people i know who have problematic personalities and [loss of audio] because he was more curmudgeon. I felled more empathy for him because he was problem child. Couldnt get out of his own way. Hill was a pain in the ass if i can say that; he remind me of my late father who was an academic and brilliant but didnt always play well with others. But when you got into hills life story and what he went through as a child. He was born in nashville, tennessee, in 1858, and then the next thing when we was still a toddler the civil war literally rolled through his home town himself parents lost their house. His father lost his life not in war but to illness. His mother was cofind to a mental indisposition the one memory he had of her was of a military team dragging her away and her screaming for her children, and then from there hills childhood proceeded as a teenager he made his way to the frontier in texas, and just such a compelling life story, what he went through, and then he made his way how to it to all cornell university, never having gotten past ninth great but many even before that. But he got to cornell and was able to launch this career. Never had a chip on his shoulder, though. Its interesting, so, youre in the business. Im just a journalist and i dont im not aware of the history but how big is this idea of this debate that went in the mid20s in Southern California, is that something that if i were to go to school and become a seismologist i would learn that or is this an obscure thing you latched on to . Dont say just a journalist. To give away the punchline. Im not a scientist but i play one at a newspaper. There you go. I often end up talking to top Science Writers and realize they often understand the science extremely well. So, sorry. What was the question. Was this something that you kind of latched on to as this idea, this debate that took place . I wouldnt say that Everybody Knows about it and scientists in general dont tend to be that interested in history or the history of the history of science is an orphan subfield because historians dont tend to care about science and sciencists dont tend to care so much but history and im sort of a unusual. Theres some of us who are more interested in the history. I had been asquare of it and it had come up in my previous books, the book on predictions, because baily willis was the first person to come out with a public prediction of an earthquake in california, and if you look back, scientists since 1925 have occasionally been making kind of alarmist statements that they san an trace fat or Southern California is overdue for a great earthquake and started in 1925 but then there were others that were statements in 1969, there was the palmdale bulge in the 1970s. So i had touched on it. I was aware of it. And the conventional tell offering the great quake debate is that baily willis was the flawed hero crew cascading for Risk Reduction and bally willis was a, quote, tool in the back pocket of business interests and sort of painted as a laughing stock. The other then eventually over time i became aware that there was a second version of the debate which painted hill as a victim, that he had been set up by business interests who had twisted his words. So, i wouldnt say its well known n among seismologists but i became aware that there were two very different versions of the story and i just got interested in figuring out what the actual truth was. I sounded really interesting reading about both of them i found it really interesting reading about both of them. Baily willis was was he in Santa Barbara when the San Bernardino quake happened . Didnt deny that he had predicted that earthquake or where in fact he really hadnt. Played a role in his being more sort of the crusader type or whatever . Um, i concluded that he was sort of inclined to crusade. He didnt shy away from opportunities to step on to a stage. He was ive heard he was a very impassioned and effective orator for example in peaches but maybe a little bit of showboat but very effective at it. And then in n1925 this was how the book project started for me. I was researching the 1925 earthquake to take a book back and understand better what vault it had been on and what the mag need was, and magnitude was and i realized willis left his papers to the Huntington Library which is just down the road from me. So i applied for reader privileges and was looking into the earthquake and then i realized, oh, theres this huge collection of letters the wrote and other material and i started to get interested in the other part of it but it is very curious. He had made public statements based on thissurvey that showed a lot of strain building up and he made statements in 1923. And then on june 28th he and one of his sons took the train to Santa Barbara and he didnt talk in his letters about why he was doing some sort of consulting, and the very next morning she Santa Barbara strikes. So, the lore developed naturally that he had predicted it, and he didnt take pains to set the record straight. I was wondering a little taste of fame or whatever at that point or a little as the great predictor and that influenced him down the road. Who knows. Doesnt seem like the type of guy necessarily who would be influenced in that way but you never know. I did think when you could see it looking back, that was fascinating in the back to look back and realize that hill and willis were bon around the same time. Started the usgs. Their careers were enter twined, took a road trip together to texas in 1898. So, you could see hints that willis wasnt shying away from Media Attention. There were a couple of times in my research that i actually laughed out loud in archives, which is something youre really not supposed to do. Archives are very staid and quite places. One of them was fining a little newspaper article that willis had saved that was just historical. The beach mermaid but actually a little editorial or letter in the Santa Barbara paper that was suggesting that willis had gotten used to the Media Attention and that had driven the prediction. So that was funny. Meanwhile hill is fuming and [loss of audio] holds grudges and cant seem to get out his own way. A stubborn and irwassable as willity was irwassable as willis was charging. Im not a big read are of biographies and i dont know if i ever read a dual biography but so interesting a lot of similarities in terms of their age and their profession, et cetera, et cetera. But theres so many differences, and if youre a nature very nurture type person, you could spend a day looking at hills background as you described of growing up in the civil war, and willis had relatively easy time up in new york state, i believe. Right . Willis did lose his father as young age and. His own father had ban renowned writer, literary celebrity. The lived in a Country Estate was very idyllic until the father fell and i will that set interest motion some hard times but willis mother had a number of kid but willis was the youngest and his mother thought that he hung the moon. She was the world to him and i think vice versa. So he drew up with an absolutely doting, supportive mother whereas hill grew up to all intents and purposes an orphan. So they were in some ways an absolute study in contrasts, including the yankee versus the confederate. They were on opposite sides of the civil war. And that mattered. That was one interesting thing but to the book. Is that diversetive is now on a lot of peoples minds. And rightly so. Some of the conversations are very overdue. Hill felt like the victim solve discrimination and you look at that now, he was white, male, european descent like every other geologist but he was a southerner and was from the south, among a northern Government Agency and spell electric to all e intellectual elite and that was lifelong chip on his showered that he felt like he was the victim of biases and i think think he wasnt entirely wrong help was seeing biases behind every little issue that came up and it took on a life of their own but it was interesting to really think about the fact that there were biases against people from the south, and maybe