Where is the best place to be to avoid earthquake damage in Los Angeles, the flats (that aren’t liquefaction areas), or the hills? My house is in the Hollywood Hills area, which I believe is bedrock for the most part. I like to think that means we’ll have fewer issues in a big quake than lower lying ground, but is that just wishful thinking or is that area actually a bit safer?
You might want to look at this Probablistic Seismic Hazards Assessment map.
Good map, but so hard to see any detail. It seems to be more of a “generalization” map for large areas. No way to zoom in to see the particulars of any given area.
Are there other resources that may help with that specific situation?
Not sure I follow your reasoning; why would bedrock be safer? Assuming a “big one” is >7.0 on the Richter scale, the only mitigating factor is going to be distance from the epicenter. Sure, if you are in a liquefaction zone, it will be worse, but not all flat areas are liquefaction zones. I was 5 miles away from Northridge in 1994, and it dumped everything out of the refrigerator and toppled the bookshelves. It was shaking so much, I couldn’t stand up when I got out of bed.
Are you actually going to move out of the Hollywood Hills if you find out that its not a safe location in an earthquake? This is something that very well might not happen in your lifetime. Get some emergency supplies together and relax.
Oh, I’ve got the emergency supplies, I’ve taken the CERT classes, and we’re as prepared as we can be. And yes, I’m still scared shitless (being an east coast transplant who’s been out here for 10 yrs and hasn’t been through a major quake).
But I’m still curious.
I’ve heard bedrock is safer, transfers the motion less, but I am not sure the source is credible. Hence, asking here for any info.
Geotechnical engineering grad student here. This is not something that can really be accurately commented on without a fairly extensive field investigation (some would say not at all).
In very general terms being on bedrock is worse than being on soil. Soil tends to attenuate the ground motions and lower acceleration and displacements are generally felt. However, depending on the ground type, motions at certain frequency contents can be increased. If the natural frequency of the building falls in that range then there might be problems. Liquefaction can also be a problem if the soil is loose sand. Geometry other than a half-space (flat plain) tends to cause higher accelerations. Bedrock at the edge of a cliff face can experience accelerations several times as large as that away from the cliff. Soil that forms a hill can be susceptible to lateral spreading of the soil.
The variability of the soil type, earthquake magnitude and location, and building type make a general statement of this type pretty difficult. In general you want a flat area with dense sand or stiff clay that is far from a fault. To be more specific about your question I’d have to know the stratigraphy and soil properties of the two areas. Armchair engineering I’d say the flats are better for a house.
This sounds like one of those questions i probably would have asked before buying a place. 
Is that really true? Of course it is a probability thing, but don’t pretty nasty earthquakes hit LA every 30 years or so? Or is the OP talking specifically about “the big one”, as in bigger than any that populated LA has seen?
I only remember Northridge, but I always assumed there were more previously. I tried to look it up here, but it doesn’t restrict it to the LA area. Certainly Hector Mine in '99 didn’t count even if it knocked a few jars of mayonaise off the shelf.
There isn’t really a “safer” place, because SoCal is riddled with faults, and any one of them could have a “big one” (Newport-Englewood, I’m looking at you…). Sure, liquifaction will eat my parent’s beach house, but I could have severe damage in the OC hills too.
Try not to stress about it. Seriously, native SoCals barely notice or think about them (we have minor earthquakes several times a day, most too small to feel).
If you are living in Southern California, there is no “safe” place. There are places that are “less safe,” but the differences are so small as to be meaningless, really. It’s quite dependent upon where an earthquake happens, and that’s pretty much a matter of luck, regardless of how advanced the science of geology and the study of earthquakes has gotten.
I lived about 5 miles from the epicenter of the Loma Prieta quake in '89 (No. Cal.). You know, the one that stopped the World Series game between the Giants and the A’s. My house had minor damage (tiles on the roof knocked loose, cracks in the stucco, things knocked off shelves, etc.). My neighbors on either side had no damage besides things knocked off the shelves. Houses closer to the epicenter had nothing go wrong structurally; freeways 40 miles away were flattened.
Just make sure you are ready. Suggestion: bolting bookshelves to the wall, and using child-proof “locks” on the cabinets.