At the risk of adding to the Chicken Little tone of this thread, there are several things one can do to prepare for the "big one".

Recently I completed Los Angeles Fire Department CERT training (that's Community Emergency Response Team). The course is invaluable to anyone seeking to become more prepared, and includes general disaster preparedness, first aid, light search and rescue, etc.

While the State of California and FEMA have their own ideas, the LAFD recommends that a 21 day supply of food and water be maintained at all times. That's a minimum of two liters per person per day. For a family of four, that's 42 gallons. And two liters isn't much. 21 days of food means, of course, non perishables. Why 21 days? If the earthquake damages the aqueduct, water will have to be trucked in. Before anything can be trucked in, every bridge in the affected area will have to be inspected by engineers. That's how it was explained to me.

It's also important to maintain a decent first aid kit. The most likely injuries to be suffered as the result of an earthquake are head lacerations (falling objects) and foot lacerations (broken glass) so the kit should be weighted for those types of injuries.

It addition to knowing how to turn off your gas, you want to know how to turn off your water. Flashlights, batteries, a battery operated radio, maybe a tent and other camping gear, blah blah. I have a little generator, just big enough to run the fridge and a TV.

Keep a little kit at work - walking shoes, a dust mask and goggles, water, energy bar, radio, flashlight, etc. Be prepared to walk home in any weather.

The most important thing though, and something that the instructor pounded into us over and over, is that when the big one hits, the fire department is NOT coming to help us. Their policy is to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people, and after an earthquake they get in their trucks and do a survey of their area, beginning with schools, hospitals, high rises, and other areas of high population density. If you are in your car, sitting on the side of the road alone, having just careened into a phone pole, they're going to drive right by without helping.

As far as the loss of Dahon, as hyperbolically postulated by FF, is concerned: I can't see that the weeks needed to relocate the facilities of Dahon California after an earthquake could add much to the glacially slow response time that so many of us who have tried to get parts from them have experienced. . .