Overdue and unprepared for the Big One

ON THE MORNING of Jan. 9, 1857, a small patch of the San Andreas fault shifted near Parkfield, 40 miles northeast of the Franciscan mission at San Luis Obispo. If nothing else had happened, this event would have been typical of the magnitude 6-plus earthquakes that occur every 20 years or so and have made Parkfield the self-styled "earthquake capital of the world."

By Thomas H. Jordan

January 9, 2007