As part of EERI’s ongoing efforts to advocate for continued federal funding for earthquake research and resilience, Executive Director Heidi Tremayne drafted this op-ed and submitted it to a major U.S. newspaper within 24 hours of the earthquake that struck Myanmar and Thailand in March 2025. The op-ed was ultimately not accepted for publication, so we are sharing it here.
Learn more about EERI's Public Policy and Advocacy work here, and view a recent op-ed on related issues by EERI members Jonathan Stewart and Lucy Arendt published by The Conversation here.
How U.S. Federal Agencies Help Us Prepare for Earthquake Hazards
March 28, 2025
Heidi Tremayne
When major earthquakes happen in the U.S. or abroad, I get an unusual lens on how a group of dedicated public servants come together to respond to these disasters and share lessons that make our communities safer. In my role as Executive Director of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, I participate in the interagency coordination calls that the United States Geological Survey (USGS) hosts through the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP).
Today, I participated in a NEHRP coordination call about the devastating magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar and Thailand. What I observed on the call was truly impressive, and reminded me of the crucial value of federal agencies like USGS, FEMA, NIST, NSF, and USAID. What shone particularly brightly was the role of their international efforts in helping the U.S. prepare better for the risk we face from similar hazards.
Almost 75% of the U.S. is vulnerable to earthquakes. Here in California, we live alongside faults like the San Andreas that are very similar to the one that ruptured today in Myanmar. Future earthquakes in the U.S. will inevitably affect the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of Americans.
But major earthquakes are rare, which is why it’s critical for U.S. scientists and experts to study the ones that happen elsewhere so we can advance our knowledge and better prepare for earthquakes in the United States. Seismologists gather data, observations, and information from international earthquakes to improve our understanding of fault mechanisms and shaking, while engineers examine the impacts to the buildings and infrastructure to learn about what damage could occur. Emergency managers, aid workers, and public health authorities also gain insight from how other countries and international organizations handle disaster response. Many countries around the world have building codes modeled on those in the United States, so the lessons we learn from their earthquakes have helped us improve the standards in the US to make our buildings safer and stronger.
Less than 12 hours after the Myanmar earthquake, the USGS team had already produced and shared extensive amounts of data and added informed insights, most of which is posted in near-real time on their event webpage, and updated regularly and freely available to the public. They had determined the type of faulting, forecasted future aftershocks, and estimated the likely fatalities and economic losses. These are all incredible contributions, but they weren’t surprising—they are what I’ve come to expect from the USGS. What amazed me today was seeing how past international collaboration was informing and improving the results, helping colleagues in the impacted countries, and providing critical validation of their tools, models and communications—the same ones we will rely on when the next big one strikes the US.
For example, working with USAID, the USGS team had produced hazard models that showed the significant hazard from of the Sagaing Fault (nearly identical to the Shakemap of the real fault that had just ruptured), conducted trainings with local experts on how to create and interpret earthquake forecasts so officials could help the public prepare for aftershocks, and put in place critical seismic recording instruments that improved the local Myanmar recording network that successfully sent measurements that the USGS as soon as the earthquake happened.
All this collaboration and planning, a public investment with our tax dollars, paid off. It helped those making decisions to support the people affected in Myanmar and Thailand. And equally important, it will help us review and improve the critical processes and tools that Americans will need to prepare for and respond to the next earthquake within our own borders.
Right now, for the first time in my career, the future of U.S. federal support for earthquake science and engineering—and many critical disaster preparedness and emergency response activities—is uncertain. Recent Presidential Executive Orders and decisions related to federal funding for science and engineering have cast doubt upon the ability of the federal government to fulfill its necessary and essential role in protecting the American citizens from future earthquakes. It is critical that we ask our leaders to sustain support for the kind of amazing work I witnessed today, and recognize the value of our federal agencies in protecting our lives and communities.
