She's been explaining earthquakes for decades. Here's where she says California is least prepared

By Braden Goyette

After two strong earthquakes hit Southern California over the Fourth of July holiday, one name kept appearing in the news again and again: Dr. Lucy Jones.

Jones, a renowned seismologist, has been explaining earthquakes to Californians for decades. Dubbed "the Earthquake Lady," she's worked to make earthquake science more accessible to policymakers and the public. In 2014, she led a task force that recommended ways for Los Angeles to address its greatest earthquake vulnerabilities.

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What are the greatest vulnerabilities in terms of being prepared on a community level?

The city of Los Angeles is really moving forward on water -- that's one that hasn't been picked up by a lot of other places.

It's usually a very challenging problem because it falls to water companies, and their boundaries don't correspond with the boundaries of cities, so it's difficult for cities to act on it. ... If you live in the city of Los Angeles, great, there's a lot of good stuff going on. For all the rest of us, it's a really big challenge. We haven't found a way to address that all the imported water has to come across the San Andreas fault, and all those systems will break in a big earthquake.

Water continues to be the biggest regional challenge.

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