San Andreas (2015): Reality versus Fiction

(A Reaction Paper)
San Andreas film is an American disaster film that was released on May 29, 2015 worldwide
with the direction of Brad Peyton and written by Carlton Cuse. The film grossed 474 million
dollars globally. It was starred by Dwayne Johnson (Ray Gaines), Carla Gugino (Emma Gaines),
Alexandra Daddario (Blake Gaines), Hugo Johnstone-Burt (Ben Taylor), Art Parkinson as (Ollie
Taylor), Ioan Gruffudd (Daniel Riddick), Paul Giamatti (Dr. Lawrence Hayes) and Archie
Panjabi (Serena Johnson).

This movie has a lot to offer concerning worldwide, national or local disasters. Rescue missions
and appropriate actions to reduce injuries or deaths during earthquakes, are also being portrayed
in the movie. But the other scenes are somewhat fictitious and very much far from real-life
situations. Although they are a bit exaggerated, they seem to portray a lot of lessons for the
audiences to act during these kinds of accidents and calamities.

In the first scene, Los Angeles Fire Department air rescue pilot, Ray Gaines and his team rescued
the girl named Natalie Sawyer that was caught up in a landslide and her car fell from the road
and got stuck at the side of a cliff. Although one of the rescuers, Joby, got injured, Natalie was
still saved. In the rescue, the victim must stay still and calm for the rescuer to stabilize the car
because if he or she moves, the car will fall along with the passenger.

The first major earthquake happened in Hoover Dam in Nevada but before the earthquake, Dr.
Lawrence Hayes and his partner Dr. Kim Park was doing some research regarding the
predictions on earthquakes. In the Dam, a nearby unknown fault ruptures spawning a 7.1
earthquake making the predictions right, destroying the Hoover Dam and killing people
including Dr. Park after saving a girl. Unlike in this movie, in real life, making an earthquake
prediction model isn't as easy as what Dr. Hayes did. Researchers were trying to find every
imaginable signals and reliable precursors but nothing has panned out. Despite a century of
research, earthquake predictions remains elusive.

Also, during the second earthquake, Ray rescued his wife (the divorced paper was not signed
yet), Emma Gaines from the rooftop of the high-rise building in Los Angeles. In this personal
rescue mission, when the earthquake strikes, Ray told his wife to go to the rooftop to rescue her
with his helicopter. She told everyone including Larissa (the waitress) to get to the roof yet
nobody listened and they all rushed downstairs, so she got there alone. Emma was rescued in a
very thrilling way. Although, it was very dangerous to go to the rooftop, still Emma trusted her
husband and went there at all cost. Not everyone was saved during the disaster, even Susan
(sister of Emma's boyfriend) died when she fell from the top floor of the building. Also during
the quake, in the safest Caltech, Dr. Hayes was shouting, "Under the table!" and "Drop, cover
and hold on!" which were the ideal public service announcement during an earthquake if you're
indoors. But if you are outdoors, experts recommend crouching against a sturdy wall, similar to
what Ray Gaines told the survivors in the film.

Meanwhile, after Dr. Hayes and his team in Caltech found out that California will get hit again
by a bigger quake, they hacked through media outlets to send a warning to every citizen in the
country. In the announcement, a 9.5 or greater magnitude quake will hit and it's so massive, the
shaking will be felt in the East Coast. In reality, the shaking will only be detected by sensitive
instruments because it is so low. Even the largest possible quake produced by the San Andreas
Fault won't rattle the East Coast. In 1906, shaking from a 7.9 San Andreas quake was barely felt
in Western Nevada and Southern Oregon.

So as what the Caltech team had predicted, a 9.6 earthquake struck San Francisco, making it the
largest recorded earthquake in the history. Although, the time-span of the tremor wasn't
displayed, it wreaked havoc to the city having left much of it in ravages. In real life, once the
fault is long or deep enough, it can produce equal to or above 9 magnitude quakes but the San
Andreas wasn't, so producing this magnitude is virtually impossible. Although, it is capable of
producing a magnitude-8.3 quake, any larger than that is dubious. Also, a 7.8 tremor was
produced in 1906 which was enough to inflict destruction-1, 800 deaths and 50, 000 injuries,
hundreds of concrete structures and a few high-rise steel buildings would collapse.

The magnitude-9.6 earthquake triggered a tsunami. But unlike in this film, San Andreas Fault
cannot spawn tsunamis. Giant tsunamis are formed when the Earth's crust violently slides,
dislocating huge amounts of seawater. The larger the magnitude, the more the tsunami waves can
race across the ocean without losing energy. The San Andreas is a strike-slip fault, meaning the
sliding of opposing blocks of rocks is horizontal. So the fault can produce tremors, fires and
massive destructions but it doesn't have the capability to displace water and flood the city of San
Francisco. One thing in that scene is true wherein the withdrawing of water in the bay was
depicting that a tsunami is coming.

The film ended as Ray and Emma reunited with their daughter. After the calamities, a national
US flag unfolded on the bridge depicting that the city will rebuild as well as the lives of those
that survived. Even though, the film mostly contains unrealistic events, it told the viewers that
we must expect for the worse that could happen to be ready and prepared for the future.