21–30 of 118 posts
"Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast." Ouch.
It's a great soundbite, but it loses a lot of context when distilled down. Most of the infill west of I5 in the Seattle area will probably liquefy, but there's mountain ranges to the west of I5 that would take a hell of a quake to toast.
Would not be complete without this fantastic article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...
From that article: > fema projects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. From the rest of the article, it seems that this estimate of deaths is too low by an order of magnitude. More people died in the Fukushima earthquake, and that is in a country that is probably the most earthquake ready country in the world. If you only have 15 minutes from the start of the earthqua…
"Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast." Ouch.
This shouldn't be in the article. It's unscientific, non-technically, and pretty much meaningless.
I don't know if the statement is backed up by science, but its a falsifiable empirical prediction. It is entirely within the realm of science to make predictions that certain geographic regions will have significant structural and human damage in the event of some hypothetical natural disaster.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm more concerned about the homes that will go up in flames due to ruptured gas lines. With the fire department overwhelmed, the potential amount of toxic smoke/fumes post-quake scares me more than the quake. Assuming I survive, assuming my family/friends do, assuming we all even are happy about being survivors of something so colossal, at such scale...
The worst smoke can do is suffocate you, or raise your risk of cancer, but you can move out of harm's way. The quake itself and tsunami risk is the dangerous part for most people.
Nonetheless, id still be worried about things that will kill me, even if its not in the next 10 seconds. Dead is still dead.
Would not be complete without this fantastic article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...
From that article: > fema projects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. From the rest of the article, it seems that this estimate of deaths is too low by an order of magnitude. More people died in the Fukushima earthquake, and that is in a country that is probably the most earthquake ready country in the world. If you only have 15 minutes from the start of the earthqua…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From that article: > fema projects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. From the rest of the article, it seems that this estimate of deaths is too low by an order of magnitude. More people died in the Fukushima earthquake, and that is in a country that is probably the most earthquake ready country in the world. If you only have 15 minutes from the start of the earthqua…
I don’t know about how this would impact the estimates, but the Pacific Northwest differs from Japan in that the largest population centers — Vancouver, Seattle, Portland — are not exposed to the open ocean.
Would not be complete without this fantastic article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...
Fun song by Tacocat inspired by this article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJH1WKSugNo I saw them perform it at a concert in front of the Space Needle. Really felt I was tempting fate there.
And for our European readers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1755_Lisbon_earthquake
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The worst smoke can do is suffocate you, or raise your risk of cancer, but you can move out of harm's way. The quake itself and tsunami risk is the dangerous part for most people.
I dont think smoke is what you should be worried about during a natural gas explosion. Nonetheless, id still be worried about things that will kill me, even if its not in the next 10 seconds. Dead is still dead.
Would not be complete without this fantastic article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...
From that article: > fema projects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. From the rest of the article, it seems that this estimate of deaths is too low by an order of magnitude. More people died in the Fukushima earthquake, and that is in a country that is probably the most earthquake ready country in the world. If you only have 15 minutes from the start of the earthqua…
> As for casualties: the figures I cited earlier—twenty-seven thousand injured, almost thirteen thousand dead—are based on the agency’s official planning scenario, which has the earthquake striking at 9:41 A.M. on February 6th. If, instead, it strikes in the summer, when the beaches are full, those numbers could be off by a horrifying margin.
Thirteen thousand sounds like a best case scenario. If it happens 4th of July weekend when a million people are on the beaches all up and down the west coast, that could cause orders of magnitude more fatalities.