We Built This City on ... Water and Marsh?

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 6 February 2020

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When Nicole was growing up, her grandmother always told her: Don't live anywhere built on fill. Her uncle also had strong memories of watching the Marina burn after the 1989 earthquake — when parts of the ground liquefied, causing buildings to collapse and gas lines to break. Nicole wants to follow her grandmother's advice, but she needs to know a few things: "What neighborhoods and cities in the Bay Area are built on filled land? And what are those cities and neighborhoods doing to mitigate the risk of liquefaction?" Additional Reading Large Parts of the Bay Area Are Built on Fill. Why and Where? MAP: Where We "Created" Dry Land The Precarious Future of Treasure Island: Rising Seas and Sinking Land How Treasure Island Got Made and Why Credits Reported by Kelly O'Mara. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Jessica Placzek, Katie McMurran and Rob Speight. Additional support from Julie Caine, Paul Lancour, Don Clyde, Carly Severn, Christopher Cox, Bianca Hernandez, Kyana Moghadam, Suzie Racho, Ethan Lindsey, Vinnee Tong and Holly Kernan.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From K-QED.
0:02.0	Hello everybody, this is Bay Curious.
0:06.0	We're headed to downtown San Francisco to meet this week's question-asker.
0:10.0	Okay, my name is Nicole.
0:12.0	I live in the Cole Valley neighborhood of San Francisco.
0:14.0	Now Nicole has a grandmother in the Bay Area who has always given this advice.
0:19.0	Whenever a family member is getting ready to move somewhere,
0:22.0	she'll always say never live in a place that's built
0:25.0	on filled land.
0:26.0	Philland has a history of causing problems in the Bay Area, like during the Loma Prieta earthquake
0:31.8	in 1989.
0:33.6	Scores of buildings in San Francisco's marina neighborhood
0:37.2	were destroyed in the quake and the fires that followed it,
0:40.5	in large part because the neighborhood is built on loose sand.
0:44.0	Nicole wants to follow her grandmother's advice, but she needs to know a few things.
0:48.0	What neighborhoods and cities in the Bay Area are built on filled land,
0:52.0	and what, if anything, are those cities and neighborhoods
0:55.4	doing to mitigate risk as much as they can.
0:58.8	I brought Nicole downtown to give her a glimpse at part of the answer.
1:02.6	Let's see, we're on first and market.
1:05.2	Phil's copies here.
1:07.3	People are going about their business.
	...

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