How Likely is an Earthquake in El Paso?

How Likely is an Earthquake in El Paso?

Hi, welcome to living in El Paso, Texas in this episode. We're going to talk about what's the likelihood of El Paso seeing a big earthquake Hi, thank you so much for checking out the YouTube channel My name is John Peña with Peña El Paso Realty Group

If you are looking to buy or sell a home you are going to want to work with the best We are the best and we would love to to help you out with any of those types of real estate needs but we also like to kind of just talk about our city and what is happening and what might happen and so about two weeks ago mid-november

2022 there was a 5.3 magnitude earthquake in Mentone, Texas, which is about 242 miles east of El Paso now there were no injuries No real damages or anything like that, but it does raise an interesting point and that is what's the likelihood that? There might be an earthquake in El Paso because it's probably not something that's on people's radar, so

According to Aaron Velasco a professor of earth environmental and resource sciences at UTEP our university here Water injections into the ground may have caused that earthquake and a 5.0 magnitude quake in the same area in March of 2020, so here's a quote from Mr. Velasco research had shown that that earthquake in

2020 was likely the result of deep water injection, which is a byproduct of fracking but not fracking itself Right now what's going on is that there is a large volume of water that had been injected in West, Texas And that seems to be the root cause of some of these earthquakes in West, Texas So now the Mentone earthquake occurred along a fault line and that stress is natural

It's been there a very very long time According to Mr. Velasco the fracking has kind of weakened the faults And it kind of released the stresses they were probably there for you know honestly millions of years And so I certainly am NOT going to

Jump into the politics of fracking, but it is a wee bit concerning that What we're doing now over the short term could have an effect You know that that's that's been you know going back millions of years like that's you know it's a little little disconcerting but

What are the chances of El Paso having an earthquake because quite honestly when we sell homes to people a lot of times? They're like well. You know I got to get insurance What should I be looking out here for and really what we tell them is that you know? There's not a lot of

Elements of the weather that cause a lot of damage to your home aside from Sun We are the Sun City so direct sunlight over time obviously breaks down materials over time There are a couple of flood prone areas in El Paso, but honestly where most people are ending up moving kind of the suburbs That's not really a big problem and beyond that that's about it right. We don't really have snow. We don't have blizzards

We don't have ice We don't have tornadoes. We don't have you know Typically I say we don't have earthquakes, but like I said this recent one in Mentone made us think again and so What's the chances of an earthquake happening in El Paso? Well according to Mr.. Velasco quote not zero

Okay So he says the Franklin Mountains formed because of earthquakes in the first place And there's a fault out there that the US Geological Survey has estimated has a potential of a magnitude of seven But that there's a very low probability of that happening. It says it could happen tomorrow

It could happen in a thousand years, but it's a very low probability, and it's called low probability high Impact if it were to happen, so that's pretty interesting You know basically it sounds like yeah, and an earthquake could happen on the fault lines Somewhere I believe in the Franklin Mountains, but again

It's of course very hard to predict and And no one knows when or if it would happen But if it did happen they say it has a potential to be a magnitude seven So what what would a magnitude seven earthquake look like well?

Remember this is on a range of one to ten Seven is considered very strong intensity. It says damage negligible in buildings of good design and construction now honestly I Don't know how much the the buildings here like let's talk about like the like some of the bigger buildings downtown

I can't imagine that those buildings were built with Concerns about earthquakes and so you know of course like I said that's an uninformed opinion But and then it also says there would be slight to moderate damage in well-built ordinary structures I'm guessing that's homes and then

Considerable damage and poorly built or badly designed structures This is funny. We're not funny some chimneys broken and so You know what that suggests is that if we did actually have a magnitude 7 earthquake in El Paso It's likely will one everyone is going to be freaked out because nobody in El Paso is expecting an earthquake

So aside from the just the shock and awe of the of the experience there would probably be you know some pretty significant damage especially to to older structures older buildings I would imagine that a lot of the why I have no idea But I would think a lot of the really nice homes that are actually built on the mountain might have some issues

As far as kind of structural stability and things like that, but again Remember, it's a pretty it's a pretty big long shot that that El Paso would have an earthquake But like I said it popped up in the news. We've been talking about it a little bit We thought it would make just kind of for an interesting little episode

And so we hope that was mildly interesting for you and if so Maybe you'll think about subscribing to the channel We try to create content that's valuable whether you're moving to El Paso or whether you actually live in El Paso We're really excited to start showcasing some of the local businesses in El Paso. So

Be on the lookout for that. And other than that, we'll see you in the next episode You