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1700 Cascadia Earthquake

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Re: 1700 Cascadia Earthquake

#101

Post by irrational »

Spooky23 wrote: post #67
ZDurmPhoto wrote: post #44

I live in Portland and have a slide-in truck camper on my property. I use it for camping of course, but it is also part of my earthquake preparation plan. It is solar powered but also has a built-in propane generator. It is fully self-contained with all the comforts of home including fresh water storage, a galley with oven, stove, freezer and fridge. A bathroom plus a hot shower, comfortable bed, large pantry, closet…

This type of stuff is what always made the west coast unappealing. Where I live, disaster is a bad ice storm, blizzard or localized flooding. Complete devastation just isn’t my thing.

Yeah, but this isn't like living in Tornado alley or the east coast where there is a hurricane season. I live in Portland and we don't have any natural disasters unless a major earthquake does happen or a volcano comes to life. But let's be realistic, what are the chances of that happening in our lifetimes? It's not like this is an every year thing like tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, etc. Complete devastation from hurricanes and tornadoes and flooding is much more likely than huge earthquakes and volcanoes.

Re: 1700 Cascadia Earthquake

#102

Post by irrational »

Exmoor wrote: post #33
thedigitalone wrote: post #5

"Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast." Ouch.

It's a weird statement to make, because the route of I5 is fairly arbitrary, geologically speaking. Lower parts of downtown Seattle may be at risk, but is upper Queen Anne hill? Ballard may be partially screwed, but Crown Hill is hundreds of feet higher in elevation. That assumes that Puget Sound even generates a large Tsunami based on an offshore quake. If we're talking about Oregon it gets even weirder since the po…

The danger zone in Western Oregon is places like the Tualatin Basin (which is all West of I-5). This is the location of things like all of the Intel Fabrication plants in Oregon, Nike World Headquarters, etc. The entire basin will liquefy in the event of a giant earthquake.

Re: 1700 Cascadia Earthquake

#103

Post by irrational »

99_00 wrote: post #92
bawolff wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a colloquialism for destroyed. Would you object if he said "utterly destroyed" instead? It means the same thing. Maybe you think its inappropriately informal, but that is a stylistic concern, not a science concern.

>Its a colloquialism for destroyed That's debatable. It can mean anything from doomed to in trouble. IDIOMS FOR TOAST be toast, Slang. to be doomed, ruined, or in trouble: >Would you object if he said "utterly destroyed" instead? Yes I would object. Does it mean everything west of I5 is going to fall into the ocean? All human structures are going to be levelled? Only structures over 2 stories not made out of wood wil…

In Oregon, the land to the west of I-5 is clay silt from the Missoula Floods that came down the Columbia Gorge 13,000 - 15,000 years ago. The clay silt is expected to completely liquefy in the event of a major earthquake.

Re: 1700 Cascadia Earthquake

#104

Post by philshem »

bmmayer1 wrote: post #2

Would not be complete without this fantastic article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...

It's a fantastic article, which also won Kathryn Schulz and the New Yorker a Pulitzer!

https://www.oregonlive.com/today/2016/04/really_big_one_puli...

https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/kathryn-schulz

Re: 1700 Cascadia Earthquake

#105

Post by goodcanadian »

cvdub wrote: post #82
gammarator wrote: post #36

Note that Washington deployed the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system just yesterday--here's how to enable it on your phone: https://mil.wa.gov/alerts

> Washington deployed the ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system just yesterday Do you know how the early warning system works? How much advance warning do they expect to give?

The Earthquake warning system works through the fact that the signal travels faster than the ground waves. So, earthquake occurs and is detected. A warning is sent out. The amount of time between the warning and when you feel shaking is entirely dependent on how far you are from the epicentre. It won't give you much time, but it should be enough to get under a table, or to move away from windows that could break or things that could fall on you.

Re: 1700 Cascadia Earthquake

#106

Post by goodcanadian »

rconti wrote: post #63

I remember in early 2001, reading an article in the NYTimes or Seattle Times about the quake risk in Seattle, showing an easterly view of downtown from Puget Sound. In it, a line was drawn, showing a fault line, just about 4 blocks south of the Kingdome/Safeco Field area, along with the usual panic about how bad an earthquake could be in the region. This article and that image flashed through my mind when not more th…

My wife was a student working at the Geological Survey of Canada on the 13th(I think?) floor of a building in down town Vancouver. She tells me that the building got swaying pretty good and the geologists were running around cheering "geology in action" and such. There was a memo on the following Monday about appropriate behaviour in an emergency. :-)

(For myself, best I can figure, I was on a bus and didn't notice a thing.)

Re: 1700 Cascadia Earthquake

#107

Post by ghaff »

irrational wrote: post #101
Spooky23 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This type of stuff is what always made the west coast unappealing. Where I live, disaster is a bad ice storm, blizzard or localized flooding. Complete devastation just isn’t my thing.

Yeah, but this isn't like living in Tornado alley or the east coast where there is a hurricane season. I live in Portland and we don't have any natural disasters unless a major earthquake does happen or a volcano comes to life. But let's be realistic, what are the chances of that happening in our lifetimes? It's not like this is an every year thing like tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, etc. Complete devastation from…

Tornadoes are pretty rare (and localized) outside of certain areas. Blizzards--other than a bad one if you live on the coast--are mostly a stay at home until it's over event. Hurricanes/floods are definitely in the southeast and can come up the coast as in Sandy. But this again mostly involves having a house somewhere that's not overly exposed to flooding if there's a lot of rain.

But yes. There's some balancing of unlikely but major natural disasters and fairly routine bad weather events.

From a natural disaster perspective you're probably best off in the desert Southwest.

Re: 1700 Cascadia Earthquake

#109

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

gammarator wrote: post #31
bmmayer1 wrote: post #2

Would not be complete without this fantastic article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...

I think that article is best paired with this followup: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/how-to-s... in particular this hedge: > Perhaps no line in the entire six-thousand-word piece attracted as much attention as this declaration by Kenneth Murphy, head of the fema division responsible for Cascadia: “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.” The first importa…

that was a misrepresentation of the linked article

Re: 1700 Cascadia Earthquake

#110

Post by jmcqk6 »

arethuza wrote: post #108

There is a fantastic set of videos on the geology of the Pacific Northwest by Nick Zentner available on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpwTojTevrmOfXmPVpGSa... Edit: I'm nowhere near the area (I'm in Scotland) but I find the series absolutely fascinating.

Zentner's videos are forking fantastic. There is some really mind blowing stuff about the PNW geology.

For example, Did you know there's a connection between Yellowstone, Smith Rock in Oregon, and Liberty Gold in central Washington?

The possible connections between columbia river basalt and yellowstone is also very interesting.

It's just a fantastic place to be for geology.

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