OJB Contest: What Would Be the WORST Place in OC for Chelyabinsk-Sized Meteor to Hit?

By
Greg Diamond
– February 15, 2013Posted in: "The OC", Fresh Juice

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A conversation on the Weekend Open Thread has gotten me thinking: what if the meteor of a day ago, the Blast Over the Chelyabinsk Oblast, had instead struck here?

Meteor over Chelyabinsk (as seen from Ekaterinberg)

This is the meteor descending over Chelyabinsk, as seen from Yekaterinburg, 120 miles to the north of the hypocenter. (But surely you knew that from the photo.) Had it exploded over Orange County, injuring 1200 but not killing anyone, where would have been the worst place for it to hit?

Bear in mind, Chelyabinsk is no mere Inyo County.  It’s a city of over a million located in an oblast (that’s a province, roughly like a small state) of 3.5 million, a little larger than Orange County.  (Yes, its area is at least 40 or so times as large as OC — but isn’t that true of most places?)  The meteor injured 1000 people and countless (at least at this point) panes of glass in and around Chelyabinsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, home of higher education institutions including South Ural State University — the sports teams of which, if I don’t miss my bet based on the city’s and oblast’s flag and coat of arms, have pretty much pretty much got to be nicknamed the Camels.  (And has “Oblast” ever been a better name for a Russian state-equivalent?  Actually, yes it has; this is a center of Russia’s defense industry.  So they are not so very different from us, after all, especially in terms of cursing robustly when things fall from the skies and make big booms.)

No one died in the explosion (or whatever it is finally determined to have been), although about 1200 people sought medical treatment, mostly for injuries from broken glass and the supersonic boom from the 50,000+ mpg projectile most of which apparently made it only to within 20 miles of the surface.  That means that we can just stipulate the same sort of non-fatal result here and ask: if an injurious meteor were to detonate (or whatever) over OC, where would be the worst place to be its unfortunate hypocenter?

In your answers, please do not tell us where the best place to be under the ‘splosion would have been — and if you can’t help yourself at least please try not to be personal, as in referencing certain people’s homes.  Consider economic, human, political, reputational, social and recreational damage — plus, I guess, the benefits of “see where the meteor hit” tourism.


About Greg Diamond

Somewhat verbose worker's rights and government accountability attorney, residing in northwest Brea. General Counsel of CATER, the Coalition of Anaheim Taxpayers for Economic Responsibility, a non-partisan group of people sick of local corruption. Deposed as Northern Vice Chair of DPOC in April 2014 when his anti-corruption and pro-consumer work in Anaheim infuriated the Building Trades and Teamsters in spring 2014, who then worked with the lawless and power-mad DPOC Chair to eliminate his internal oversight. Occasionally runs for office to challenge some nasty incumbent who would otherwise run unopposed. (Someday he might pick a fight with the intent to win rather than just dent someone. You'll know it when you see it.) He got 45% of the vote against Bob Huff for State Senate in 2012 and in 2014 became the first attorney to challenge OCDA Tony Rackauckas since 2002. None of his pre-putsch writings ever spoke for the Democratic Party at the local, county, state, national, or galactic level, nor do they now. A family member co-owns a business offering campaign treasurer services to Democratic candidates and the odd independent. He is very proud of her. He doesn't directly profit from her work and it doesn't affect his coverage. (He does not always favor her clients, though she might hesitate to take one that he truly hated.) He does advise some local campaigns informally and (so far) without compensation. (If that last bit changes, he will declare the interest.)