A large crack running through the former Fremont City Hall is a stark symbol of the risks and realities of living in earthquake country — and the powerful forces that lie beneath our feet in the Bay Area.
Geologist Monica Esqueda looks over a large crack on the floor of a building at Central Park created by the Hayward fault on Tuesday, June 6, 2023, in Fremont, Calif. As the probability of a major earthquake increases, statistically speaking, with each passing year some residents and geologists are concerned that civic leaders and developers are ignoring the hard lessons of geologic history. Those lessons — epitomized by the crack tearing the city’s former nerve center — are as relevant today as they were 50 years ago.
“It’s money, it’s greed,” said Joyce Blueford, a geologist and the founder of MS Nucleus. “The builders will long be gone, but the people living inside them will suffer.”