Once again I heartily thank M. Lee Allison for providing the central inspiration for my story (sorry you had to do it the hard way this time, bubba, and I’m glad you’re in Kansas anymore).
My thanks to the many people who contributed their special earthquake stories, which appear as epigraphs in this book.
I wish to thank the legion of geoscientists who helped me approach technical accuracy. They include Walter Arabazs, director, and Sue Nava of the University of Utah Seismic Station; Marjorie Chan, professor, Department of Geology, University of Utah; Sarah George, director, Utah Museum of Natural History; John Middleton, geographer; Edward A. Hard, Timothy A. Cohn, and Kathleen K. Gohn, U.S. Geological Survey; Vicki Cowart, director, Colorado Geological Survey; John Nichols, Mid-America Earthquake Center, UCIC; and Michael Malone, consulting geologist, Sebastopol, California (a man of sterling professional character, not to be confused with the shlub named Malone in this book). I am also indebted to the authors of a great many geoscience publications, particularly Prediction: Science, Decision Making, and the Future of Nature, edited by Daniel Sarewitz, Roger A. Pielke, Jr., and Radford Byerly, Jr., Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma, by Peter A. Levine, and Paleoseismic Investigation of the Salt Lake Segment of the Wasatch Fault Zone at the South Fork, Dry Creek and Dry Gulch Sites, Salt Lake County, Utah, by Bill D. Black, William R. Lund, David P. Schwartz, Harold E. Gill, and Bea H. Mayes. I wish to acknowledge the expert assistance of Robin Wendler, structural engineer, ZFA Santa Rosa, and Lee
Siegel, freelance science journalist, Salt Lake City. I thank Salt Lake City’s mayor, Ross C. (“Rocky”) Anderson, and his building guards for their kindness in providing tours of the Salt Lake City and County Building.
I thank Kelley Ragland for her superb editorial advice, and I am indebted, as always, to the Golden Machetes critique group, in the persons of Mary Madsen Hallock, Thea Castleman, Ken Dalton, and Jon Gunnar Howe. Special thanks to Jon for several extraordinary assists when I painted myself into corners.
My thanks to Andrew Hanson and his Grace Connection Seventh Day Adventist congregation in Chico, California, for inviting me to address their gathering, thereby inspiring me to cogitate more coherently about certain issues that are central to this book.
My special thanks to one of the finest geologists I know (lucky me, he is also my husband), Damon Brown, principal geologist, EBA Engineering, Santa Rosa, California, for vastly improving my understanding of the fields of earthquake prediction and engineering geology, and for staying up late many nights to talk through the ethical issues spawned in the oftentimes cramped meeting place between geology and public policy. And I thank my young son, Duncan, for charming Salt Lake City’s mayor into that tour by telling extra-good cow jokes, and for his enthusiasm while accompanying me to the top of the clock tower. He was a sport then and continues to be so as I spend too much time writing these books.