Oregon’s Tsunami Risk
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
That's because a magnitude 9 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone is predicted to have effects well inland. E.g. most of Portland's bridges won't survive. The recently constructed Tilikum Crossing is up to modern earthquake standards, probably the new Sellwood Bridge, but the older bridges aren't. Those older bridges include all the interstate highway bridges.
How long can the Portland Metro area survive without electricity and without water and with much of the road infrastructure unusable because of damaged bridges?
A strong earthquake along the subduction zone can also affect the entire Washington Coast and Seattle. It could also affect Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia.
Does anyone believe that FEMA could cope with a disaster like that? I don't. If and when the big one hits, a lot of people will be in for a lot of hurt.
This is generally known in the area. E.g. my daughter learned about it in a high school geology class. The high risk area is "anything west of I-5". But, as the article points out, the politicians have opted for Gollum's "I'm not listening" attitude.
A 8.0 earthquake just happened inland in Peru.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Peru_earthquake
2 people died. From what I understand subduction zone earthquakes can be terrible, but it depends on the depth in the ocean at which they occur. If they are the right distance from shore and depth, devastating. But, further out and deep enough, they can often result in no tsunami. Does anyone know if that's supported by evidence?
I also keep seeing the author's quote about a 1 in 3 chance within 50 years that the big one hits. But in other places I've seen it say 5%. I'm a little confused by that number and what's correct.
It's scary either way. But, it does seem like the biggest death tolls occur where massive populations are spread near the coast, like in Indonesia.
Tell that to New Orleans.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-...
"Who will buy a house in a neighborhood too dangerous for a police station?" he asked. "Who will start a business in an area where fire stations are not allowed?"
Preferably no one?
Of course, people who cause car accidents are usually distracted or otherwise impaired.
This type of regulation feels ominously similar to the choices made in areas like Paradise California, which burned last year. Too little respect for the urban-wildland interface.
It’s hard to truly appreciate the scale of natural events until you’re in the middle of one. Even a mild earthquake is a vivid reminder of the scale.
And that was caused by a quake in Alaska.
You won't be underwater forever. How long does it take for a tsunami to recede?
Yes. Kind of. A bit. Well, project moose, but not really I suppose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOOSE
An important detail is:
``` forty-one subduction zone earthquakes on the Cascadia subduction zone in the past 10,000 years, suggesting a general average earthquake recurrence interval of only 243 years ```
With the last being in the year 1700 which puts the next firmly in the overdue with respect to average interval but not beyond the range of observed variance.
Infrastructure related folks in the area might want to look into https://www.shakealert.org/
Coincidentally Wikipedia suggests the San Andreas daily erupted today?
Millions of people live on or near fault lines, yet we don't see calls to prevent building Fire/Police/Hospitals simply because "they would perish too."
The Oregon Coast is no exception. Those who live there, service personnel included, do so because they love the region, despite being reminded daily with all the "Tsunami Warning" signs up and down the PCH 101.
The area threatened by a major earthquake may extend for hundreds of miles and elevation is no defense. We have no choice but to locate public facilities in that area.
Umm... no. They returned in time to continue the session. It didn't pass because there weren't enough Democrats who supported the bill.
>The move seemingly ended a fight that has strained relationships in the statehouse since the first days of the session. HB 2020 would create an overall cap on Oregon’s greenhouse gas emissions and would charge companies for their pollution.
>But the bill saw backlash from industries that felt added costs would put them at a competitive disadvantage, and from citizens who chafed at an expected increase in gas and energy costs. Ultimately the pushback was apparently enough to convince three Democratic senators to oppose the bill, meaning it would likely not have enough votes to pass.
https://www.opb.org/news/article/as-republicans-return-senat...
Edit: Probably violating HN guidelines, but: I provided a reliable source, yet am being heavily downvoted without any counterpoint or counterreference. What's the issue with my comment?
It's the same reason threatening to shut down the government is becoming more common, it makes you look tough and uncompromising in the face of what your base considers to be evil.
It's not an either or. The bill may have been one of the motives to flee. The reality in the end, though, was that their tactic didn't defeat the bill. They came back before the end of the session. There was a quorum, but the Democrats realized they didn't have enough votes.
My point is that claiming there wasn't a quorum, given how productive the end of the session was[0], is simply false.
[0]They passed 100 bills in the last two days.
https://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon-legislative-session-...
Does not bode well for the future of our democracy. I guess we will see what the future holds.
OK well if we're going to play the blame game, and we don't like disingenuously omitting things, then why shield from blame those 3 Democrats who switched sides? Why shield from blame the leadership who could've stayed the course, maybe found a way to wait the Republicans out forever? (It's not like "rules" or "procedures" apply anymore, so why not?)
You never know, someone you claim is a Republican partisan could just be the most disappointed liberal you ever saw, fed up with how weak and ineffectual their supposed representatives in various bodies are, even despite having majorities in those bodies. Am I automatically a Republican for saying something like "Obama isn't liberal enough?" Of course not. And those who claim that criticism of the leadership is disloyal/traitorous share that trait with fascists.
Or, you know, just someone who values the truth. :-)
There doesn't have to be a complex narrative behind my actions, and nor do I have to be on either the Democrats or the Republican's side to point out when a statement is false.
>The good news is that Oregon, according to the article, also gave up on its climate change bill.
Here is the next:
>"Gave up" in this case consists of a certain party's legislative membership fleeing to Idaho to deny quorum.
And then came mine:
>Umm... no. They returned in time to continue the session. It didn't pass because there weren't enough Democrats who supported the bill.
And then eventually you ask me:
>If you value the truth why did you exclude so much of it?
The first two comments were clearly omitting an important fact, so I contributed to the conversation by providing excluded truths. Furthermore, my comment implicitly acknowledged that the senators ran away to prevent a quorum, by acknowledging that they returned. In case there was any doubt, I made that explicit in my next comment.
Not to mention that my (initial) comment contained more information, and actually provided a source. And in all these comments criticizing mine, no one else has even bothered to provide a source to support their claims.
So what did I exclude, and why am I the one being asked? Why not hold the original commenters to the same standard?
As I said, at the end of the legislative session:
1. There was quorum.
2. No one was stalling the bill at that point.
3. The Democrats chose not to have a vote on the bill because of actions by their own party members. Whatever tactics the Republicans initially used to stall the bill, at the end the Democrats contributed to the failure in getting the bill passed.
(For anyone still reading, and confused about my original comments - their scores were well into the negatives, although they no longer are so.)
It's right in my original comment, with the link:
We have no way of knowing if the bill had enough votes to pass because the GOP senators never permitted it to come up for a vote. Anything beyond that is speculation.
1) This conversation veered into politics, making it more divisive.
2) Your response "Umm... no" to me reads as snarky even though you provided substantive, new to me information in your comment with a source.
HN asks that in comments:
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
In short, it seems to me that you veered towards snark when HN asks that we veer towards civility, especially about divisive topics.
>Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
Regarding "Umm... no", I suppose some people see it as snarky. I didn't intend for it to be that way, and at least in real world situations, people don't appreciate it if I start the conversation with "You're wrong!". The "umm... no" was meant as a way to lighten the effect of pointing out that someone was wrong.
Regarding the conversation veering into politics, I'd buy that argument if the parents were downvoted as well, which is clearly not the case. I'm not the one who brought politics into this thread.
At the same time, consider the very same guideline you pointed out:
>Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Yet multiple comments beneath mine are accusing me of being both partisan and disingenuous. Not exactly thoughtful, and as of the time of me writing this comment, I am the only one providing actual sources/references. Who else is being "substantive" here?
As far as HN guidelines go, this is part of one of them:
>Assume good faith.
I find it hard to square comments accusing me of being disingenuous and partisan with that.
And obviously, there is:
>When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.
At the end of the day, I'm more inclined to think that the evidence points more to HN readers of my comment as being partisan. I merely posted a fact and backed it up - it was not an opinion. And it certainly was not an accusation. And in a later comment, I even acknowledged the nuances - yes, the senators were possibly motivated by preventing quorum - not something. Despite stating that, I'm still accused of being disingenuous by omission. What am I omitting?
(Mostly replying to you as you actually tried to provide a helpful response, and if I respond to everyone individually, I'll hit the post limit very soon).
I hear you. It sounds like you are engaged in the conversation in good faith and are trying to understand why your communications are being downvoted while others are not.
I can't say for certain why your comments have been downvoted while others haven't, but I can make a conjecture.
Peter Drucker said "communication is perception." That has stuck with me.
Why might this matter here? If an initial comment you made rubbed anyone the wrong way, then the rest of your comments in this thread are likely to be perceived negatively.
This could be compounded by political preferences and group psychology.
Again, I'm just making a conjecture here as I didn't want to leave you hanging.
I drew on Drucker's thoughts on communications from his original 1973 publication of Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, and Practices. I uploaded the relevant pages to an Imgur album if you would like to read them.