How to Stay Safe When the Big One Comes. We’ll send you a reminder. Your reminder will be sent For most of the past three years, I’ve worked as a book critic, which is not a job that affords me many opportunities to scare the living daylights out of my readers. (Authors, occasionally; readers, no.) But earlier this month, when a story I wrote about a dangerous fault line in the Pacific Northwest hit the newsstands, the overwhelming response was alarm. “Terrifying,” the story kept getting called; also “truly terrifying,” “incredibly terrifying,” “horrifying,” and “scary as fuck.” “Don’t read it if you want to go back to sleep,” one reader warned. “It’s hard to overhype how scary it is,” Buzzfeed said. Novelists and screenwriters can terrify people, feel pretty good about themselves, and call it a day. Who will be affected by the earthquake? The Cascadia subduction zone runs from Cape Mendocino, California, to Vancouver Island, Canada. It’s maddeningly difficult to find a good map of the entire region showing relative risk.
The Earthquake That Will Devastate Seattle. When the 2011 earthquake and tsunami struck Tohoku, Japan, Chris Goldfinger was two hundred miles away, in the city of Kashiwa, at an international meeting on seismology. As the shaking started, everyone in the room began to laugh. Earthquakes are common in Japan—that one was the third of the week—and the participants were, after all, at a seismology conference. Then everyone in the room checked the time. Seismologists know that how long an earthquake lasts is a decent proxy for its magnitude. The 1989 earthquake in Loma Prieta, California, which killed sixty-three people and caused six billion dollars’ worth of damage, lasted about fifteen seconds and had a magnitude of 6.9.
When Goldfinger looked at his watch, it was quarter to three. It was March. Oh, shit, Goldfinger thought, although not in dread, at first: in amazement. For a moment, that was pretty cool: a real-time revolution in earthquake science. Just north of the San Andreas, however, lies another fault line. But it did not. The Pacific Northwest is Doomed | Big Think. By Robert Montenegro If you have friends who live in the U.S. states of Washington or Oregon, you've probably seen this tremendous piece from The New Yorker on social media this week, likely accompanied by words of dread and nightmare fuel, or at least a long string of disconcerted emojis. To offer a very basic summary, a massive earthquake is expected to develop in the next hundred years out of the Cascadia subduction zone, which stretches from Vancouver Island, Canada, to Mendocino, California. The tectonic plate beneath the region would effectively collapse, triggering a 45-foot tsunami that would make an absolute mess of the coastline.
Everyone who lives within the red zone below — and plenty of people outside of it — would be in deep, deep fertilizer. It's a long read, but I recommend carving out the 15-20 minutes it'll take to run through the article. The most disturbing part of the piece is Schulz's relentless account of just how unready the region is to sustain such a disaster. Japan Earthquake Holds Lessons For Oregon Coast | OPB.
This story is part of a series Oregon Public Broadcasting is doing on how well the Northwest is prepared for the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that scientists say will hit along the Cascadia Subduction Zone just off the Pacific Coast. In this piece we look at: Three times in three years Jay Wilson has returned to Kadonowaki, Japan. Each time, the weeds are a little bit taller, the concrete foundations are a little more weathered. The scene near Kadonowaki shortly after the 2011 tsunami. Stephanie Chang On March 11, 2011, a tsunami scraped a vast swath of this town from the earth.
As Wilson surveys the landscape, it’s hard to know whether he’s more rattled by this tsunami that has happened, or the tsunami that will happen — in Oregon. “It’s a kind of foreshadowing of what some communities are going to look like when this thing does happen someday,” said Wilson, chairman of the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission. Jay Wilson The Hospital That Withstood A 9.0 Dr. Dr. Jason Bernert / OPB. 'It's not hopeless': earthquake, tsunami expert Chris Goldfinger. Chris Goldfinger, an Oregon State University professor of geology and geophysics, is one of the world's leading experts on the Cascadia subduction zone, the fault line that extends from northern California off Oregon and Washington to Vancouver Island, Canada.
The New Yorker extensively quoted Goldfinger in a story this week, "The Really Big One. " The article by New Yorker writer Kathryn Schulz has reignited concern and debate over the possible quake and tsunami that scientists began predicting after the 1960s, when they began understanding that the earth's crust is made up of shifting plates that can slip suddenly and catastrophically.
The Oregonian/OregonLive's Richard Read caught up with Goldfinger Monday before he left the country for a conference in Europe to talk about the earthquake dangers in the Pacific Northwest and Oregon State's plans to build a new science center in Newport's tsunami inundation zone. Their conversation has been edited for space and clarity. A: (Laughs). Riding out the Big One | Washington State Military Department.
Preparedness will be key in surviving the next big earthquake to hit the Pacific Northwest. That means families need to have at least three days’ worth of supplies and an emergency “go” kit ready and, for those living on the coast, have an understanding of evacuation routes and the warning signs behind tsunamis – including how NOAA Weather Radio works and the coastal sirens. “Don't be scared of earthquakes and tsunamis. Be informed, educated, prepared and then be confident that you are ready,” said John Schelling, the Earthquake/Tsunami/Volcano Programs Manager for the Washington Emergency Management Division. An article published in The New Yorker this week talks about how a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake could devastate the coast.
The Cascadia Subduction Zone extends from northern California to Vancouver Island. This is not new news. What the vertical tsunami evacuation building in Westport will look like when finished next year. So, what can you do now? What else can you do? Emergency Disaster & Survival Kit | Red Cross. Hazards & Disaster Preparedness | King County. These are the most common disasters that could strike the King County region.
Click on topics to learn more about the effects of these hazards and what you can do to prepare and respond to them. Each section contains hazard-specific preparedness and response steps, along with links to related information. Want to find out where natural hazards impact your community - check out the King County GIS Center's iMap system to get information on floodplains, liquefaction areas, earthquake faults, and more! Hazards in King County Avalanches: An avalanche is a mass of loosened snow or ice that suddenly and swiftly slides down a mountain, often growing as it descends and collects additional material such as mud, rocks, trees and debris. Other natural hazards Get prepared Learn what you can do to plan for emergencies before they happen - prepare your family and your business.
Puget Sound Energy - Create an Emergency Kit. What Can I Do? | Seattle Emergency Management. Make it Through. White House Councils & Task Forces. $1 Billion National Disaster Resilience Competition. National Disaster Resilience Competition | Shared Resources. King County - Climate & Resiliency. PNW Resilience Challenge | Shared Resources. Driving a Sustainable and Resilient Future | CommonAgenda. PNWER - Home. Washington OneNet | FirstNet | Office of the Chief Information Officer. OneNet March-April Newsletter Updated April 22, 2015 Check out our newsletter here! It includes a summary of the responses that OneNet received from our stakeholders on FirstNet's second notice. Live Long and Prosper? Impressions from the SPOCs MeetingUpdated April 21, 2015The latest blog from Our Fearless Leader!
WON Needs Your Input on FirstNet's 2nd NoticeUpdated April 21, 2015FirstNet has suggested some interpretations of the Act which created the First Responder Network authority and has asked for comments on its interpretation. See Agenda Register Here Washington OneNet works to Connect Tribal NationsUpdated April 7, 2015WON is proud to announce a third Tribal video in our FirstNet in Washington State video series! Washington OneNet introduces Tribal focused addition to video seriesUpdated March 22, 2015 WON is excited to introduce the newest videos in our FirstNet in Washington State series! WON at IWCE 2015 (International Wireless Communications Expo)updated March 18, 2015 . Washington State Fusion Center. Emergency Management Division | Washington State Military Department. The mission of the Washington Military Department’s Emergency Management Division (EMD) is to minimize the impact of emergencies and disasters on the people, property, environment, and economy of Washington State.
The Division notifies and alerts state agencies and local governments of impending emergencies and disasters. During state emergencies, EMD manages the State Emergency Operations Center located on Camp Murray, near Tacoma, and coordinates the response to ensure help is provided to those who need it quickly and effectively. The EOC is designated as the central location for information gathering, disaster analysis, and response coordination.
Other state agencies with emergency roles may come to the EOC to help coordinate the state response. At the EOC, information gathered is used by executives to make decisions concerning emergency actions and to identify and prioritize the use of state resources needed to respond to the emergency. Contact the Emergency Management Division. Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. The New Yorker earthquake article unleashes tsunami of social media: 8 takeaways. Leave it to The New Yorker to publish the definitive treatment of horrors bound to spring from a Northwest Cascadia subduction-zone earthquake and tsunami. Authors of voluminous state task-force reports have labored to catalog the probable effects of the colossal double disaster that experts say will certainly someday — perhaps in our lifetimes — kill thousands, erase Oregon coastal towns and decimate Portland, Seattle and other cities.
But when the famed Manhattan magazine — still studded with quirky cartoons, and ever authoritative under editor David Remnick's steady hand — delves into a topic, it does so with such vivid clarity that its article sweeps the Web, sending Tweets skittering across our region and the world. This week's article, entitled "The Really Big One," forces us to confront anew the Damocles sword suspended over us by a thread. 1. "Big" and "very big" quakes are coming to the Pacific Northwest. OSU tsunami controversy 2. 3. 4. 5. At about 9 p.m. 6. 7. 8. -- Richard Read. U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit. WeADAPT 4.0. Cover Image Credit.