Earthquake insurance won't pay

That nice Illinois earthquake that woke up Chicago apparently damaged a high school gym. Now, it turns out that the earthquake insurance won't pay up. They have used the age-old blasting insurance wheeze that the damage was there before the earthquake, and the earthquake had nothing to do with it.

This has always been a classic problem with blasting and other vibration work, such as compacting, and vibration seismic surveys. The owner of a rickety house says the blasting caused cracks. The blasting company is at a loss, since it knows that the house is so far away that the blasting did not cause it. That's why for most blasting, they always do house surveys, before the blast, and they monitor the blast.

We had the same problem when we did a big seismic survey for southern Ontario (that all the environmental assessments are ignoring). At one house, the owner claimed that the little plastic inserts in his thermal windows fell down. These windows are severely handled before they are installed, so this was clearly impossible without all his drywall totally disintegrating! Most likely, he bought cheap windows with plastic that decayed in the sun. Nevertheless, we paid.

This gym now has long vertical cracks and has to be fixed or torn down. Was it built by the mayor's idiot cousin, Sleazy Construction? Or did the earthquake do it? That is why, if you are going to have blasting nearby, or if you have earthquake insurance, you better take a lot of pictures, on an annual basis.