I asked this to a co-worker as a joke a while back, but now i’m really curious. What is the situation like at soda distribution places after a earthquake?
Do you mean would the bottles all explode from fizz buildup? IME earthquakes don’t work that way. They have a swaying or up and down motion, but everything is moving together if you know what I mean–it’s not like the sudden jolt of dropping a can on the floor. Does a case of Coke explode in your trunk after you’ve been driving along a winding road?
I think earthquakes are a little more chaotic than a case of Coke in a trunk unless your doing some crazy things.
The worst earthquake I was ever in felt like someone was shaking my bed rather forcefully, but not all that quickly or with any sudden jolts. It felt a bit like driving over a very bumpy, winding road. If I had had a can of Coke at the time, I don’t think there would have been any fizz buildup at all.
Delivery trucks do some serious bouncing around and the bottles/cans go through heck being loaded/unloaded/loaded into machines, etc.
I would think an earthquake wouldn’t be as rough (I’ve been in two in Southern Cal.)
An inner city ride on a semi or small panel truck is much, much worse than most earthquakes.
Glass bottles? Pretty messy. Plastic or cans? Not much. Even if shaken, the CO2 will go back to equilibrium after a while.
Have you been in an earthquake? I was in Berkeley for the Loma Prieta quake and in San Luis Obispo for the Northridge quake. Neither of those were more chaotic than putting something in my trunk and driving around.
The biggest problems I’d see for soda distributors would be:
- glass from broken windows/skylights
- falling light fixtures
- shelves tipping or breaking