Earthquakes tend to get your attention. So when the 6.6 Sylmar earthquake hit the San Fernando Valley in 1971, killing 64 people and causing $550 million in damage, state lawmakers went to work.
Among a flurry of earthquake safety laws, they passed the Alquist-Priolo Act. It required the state to map active earthquake faults and prohibited building directly on top of them. Over three decades, state geologists mapped more than 500 faults, according to the California Geological Survey. But work nearly stopped in 2003.
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