The Earthquake That Will Devastate the Pacific Northwest (2015)
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
Second, on a much more lighthearted note, our state department of transportation released a video simulating different levels of earthquakes along the waterfront. For some reason in the rendering they included a little touristy hot dog stand that is actually there and show it collapsing. I dunno why I find this so funny but to include such a mundane building falling in the foreground of a video that also shows a massive (and now removed!) viaduct highway collapsing…
https://youtu.be/hos_uIKwC-c?si=r66wbS7WJdbEoD2G
Rest in peace, little hot dog stand…
A bug out kit too, which can even take the form of a quickly readied RV kept stocked with essentials, assuming one can get to or from mountainous areas in the PNW with it.
I do not winterize because I want the camper fully stocked and fully fueled. If temps drop below freezing, I heat the thing to keep it ready. If power fails I set the digital thermostat to keep it from freezing. My goal is for it to always be ready to go at a moments notice.
Its true that many will not have the space or resources to be this prepared. But if you already have the RV - why not?
This was just the time my wife and I purchased a slide-in truck camper. In my view, a truck camper is a perfect emergency shelter. We keep it fully fueled, with full fresh water tanks, and fully stocked with provisions. The camper has a built-in generator, solar chargers, 50+ gallons of fresh water, hot shower, kitchen, comfortable bed, fridge, freezer, etc. It sits in our driveway. It is fully mobile - it can also go anywhere the dually truck can go.
We've had to use it as an emergency shelter twice now because of ice storms knocking out power to our home and neighborhood for days at a time with ambient temps below 15 degrees. I keep 5 extra propane tanks in my shed along with extra water and shelf stable provisions.
In the next month, we are going to install a transfer switch on the breaker panel in our house that will allow us to run the house from the camper generator. It will be limited, but we will be able to keep the furnace and fridge going.
Nobody I know who owns an RV sets it up as an emergency shelter. I don't know why - but the threat of a major, disastrous earthquake is very real. Further, many of my neighbors were ill-prepared for the most recent major storm two weeks ago (despite plenty of warning) and grumbled a lot about the city falling down on its job. In a major earthquake these people are going to be desperate and many people will die. The city will be broken and if you rely on emergency services - you are going to be lucky to survive.
I'm not a prepper. We bought the camper for off-grid camping in remote wilderness - but I do believe in common sense preparation for "The Big One". Despite the flurry of attention this article created in 2015 - most people have put it out of their mind.
looks like I slightly exaggerated a couple figures and understated others. 3 years to restore healthcare in the valley zone.
Obviously a vehicle is good but may just be phase 1 of bugging out. Best to pack the bike, sleeping bag and water purifier.
My biggest worry are other, extremely desperate people whom I would be very inclined to help. But this would have limits and things might get gnarly leading into an area I hate to think about - using lethal force to protect my family. Hopefully, simply being visibly armed would be a deterrent, but its hard to game out how bad it might get.
My larger point is really about how ill-prepared most of my neighbors are. The recent storm simply highlighted this problem. We were all very comfortable because we had a generator and alternate, heated shelter. I spent a lot of time helping neighbors. I also had the only vehicle (Outback with all wheel drive with blizzak tires - just amazing on ice) on my sloped street that could successfully navigate ice so I was out buying cat food for my elderly neighbor, and buying groceries for our other neighbors with a new baby.
The lack of prep from my neighbors concerns me. I was glad to help. I just won't be able to feed the neighborhood. A worst case scenario earthquake will be far more damaging and stressful.
the roads will all be out, or gridlocked in both directions, with criminals on foot robbing the cars.
Or if you do get where you want to go, it'll be thronged with other urban escapees and they'll have even less food, water, and shelter.
My own belief is, your house is unlikely to be really unhabitable. It's better to NOT bug out, and have your emergency supplies there. You'll get to know your neighbors, if you don't already know them.
Of course, a tsunami cancels all that advice.
My worries about a tsunami are tempered by the coastal mountains. This would send a surge of the Columbia River and likely take out the airport. But we live on high ground well-above any flood zone.
In the absolute worst case scenario - we might all be toast.
Yeah, stay where you are . More support there,
You live in a paranoid universe. The vast majority of people will want to help strangers, and they will outnumber opportunistic criminals by far.
Anyway the one disaster story I remember hearing so much about lawlessness, here is the first Google result I get: https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/16/hurricane-ka... -- it was basically racist stereotyping and bullshit.
Another old story I was stricken by reading about was the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. There are tons of stories of suddenly homeless people sleeping in golden gate park. Of strangers helping strangers. There are pretty much no stories about crime.
If you are trying to justify your own contempt for your idea of what human nature is, then sure, believe the worst of your neighbors. Maybe you watch too many disaster movies. Back here in reality I'm less concerned about it.
Mix in there is one US political party who has spent a few years now trying to make voters paranoid about crime.
As does a rapidly approaching wildfire. At that point, it is RV-on-the-road-elsewhere if I haven't already bugged out in it.
The nice thing about a earthquake is that it's gonna be fairly localized and not a "entire country event", so the feds can react pretty quickly. I still have a week's food at home though...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MV05P2K/
There may be no need for the complexity and space usage of a transfer switch.
I would install a male 50amp receptacle (NEMA SS2-50P ?) next to your main panel and connect it to a breaker next to your main utility breaker. Then you install the little metal interlock between them to make it impossible to use both breakers simultaneously ...
... and then you just buy a big extension cord.
The 50amp receptacle is nice because it is code compliant for residential and it allows you to connect other power sources in the future.
I used to sing a twisted version of a children’s song with my kids. (No psych damage I know of!) “We are going to eat, eat, eat, peoples & baneenees!”
Hopefully food drops happen very quickly!
It doesn't hurt to be prepared but spending a significant part of your life crafting your post-apocalyptic future informs more about your stance toward living and toward people than it does healthy relations with the world.
> So if you ask someone else on the opposite side of a culture war argument, “Why would you want to own one of those things, anyway?” please don’t be surprised if they simply respond, “Why wouldn’t you?”
They also admit the sample size of a few hundred years for the US is poor before then going on to compare the US to autocratic countries like Russia.
Let's say you now own a battle rifle. Now what? Well, you can't just have a battle rifle lying around the house. So you buy a battle rifle safe. Now what? Well, you can't just own a battle rifle and now know what to do with it in case all Hell breaks loose can you? So now you have to go down to the shooting range and learn how to shoot the thing. Now what? The heavily armed squads that are going to be raiding your block are probably really good shooters so you better buy a few more and buy lessons for the whole family. See where I'm going with this?
A prepper's mind geared up for such a man-on-man scenario of doomsday violence will never be satisfied.
Geology in Oregon is somewhat terrifying. The Columbia River gorge wasn’t a slow gradual cut over millions of years — it was a roaring, rushing calamity of water and ice ripping out solid rock.
And, the rock? Laid down by lava flows so large they span hundreds of miles and are deeper than buildings are tall.
The violence of Mother Nature.
None of this stuff is likely today, but it will all inevitably repeat.
The Gorge looked different before the glacial floods, they definitely change it. But the floods took that path to the sea because the Gorge was there. The floods had more effect on the Willamette Valley where they dumped lots of debris into the valley.
What I mean by “the gorge” is what is monumental. The river was there, but what we admire about it is much more recent. Also, I’m not trying to be precise. The article was fundamentally about fear, and I’m just speaking to all the natural things around me that can cause it but really shouldn’t.
He's entertaining, incredibly information dense, and I could (and have) spent hours watching his videos, and I don't even live in the area.
This follow-up article by the same author is more levelheaded: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/how-to-s...
Notably:
> 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 important thing to note about that remark is that, needless to say, Murphy really said it, and stood by it in the fact-checking process—so, clearly, fema is anticipating that the region will be in very grave shape. That said, “toast” is not what you would call a precise description, so let me be more specific. What Murphy did not mean is that everyone west of I-5 will be injured or killed; fema’s casualty figures, while horrifying, amount to under one-half of one per cent of the population of the region. Nor did he mean that every structure west of the interstate will fail.
It would be seen as an uncomfortable reminder in the PNW, and not panic-inducing. Glad that you framed it with your own location to give context. I'm not suggesting people in BC, Washington, and Oregon are fatalist or unconcerned, just aware that in our human lifespans there are the positives that can usually outweigh the risks.
The other is that the more probable quake, 37% in 50 years, is the M8 one on southern section. That will be even less shaking in big cities, but southern Oregon and Northern California will get wrecked.
OTOH, the coast will be smashed. They are closer to fault. And then few minutes later will get hit by tsunami. The quake will be similar to the 2011 Japan one. But US is much less prepared. PNW cities could be like Tokyo and ride out quake with little damage.
By this I mean, were something like this to happen, west of I-5 suffers its devastation quickly, perhaps a lot of people are lost from quakes or tsunamis or whatever. But, once it's done, it's done and recovery can start.
The real issue is east. The quake will tear through this region, which is rough country, potentially doing severe damage to roads and, more notably, bridges.
There's a reason FEMA recommends a 3 Day go bag, and, perhaps, 2 weeks in place. And the premise behind that is that once the event is passed, the cavalry will arrive. So, there's little reason for folks to maintain months and years of supplies. Even Katrina was mostly resolved, from an emergency point of view, in less than 2 weeks.
This will likely not be the case for eastern part of Oregon. The far east, dry side, sure. But that middle section, no roads, no bridges, rugged terrain, dense woods, not easy for the cavalry to arrive in any length of time. It is very reasonable to expect that aid will not be readily able to reach you (or evacuate you) in, perhaps, months. I think folks in that area need to seriously consider a 60+ day plan to get through something like this.
Urban preparation is very difficult. You can store up some supplies for your family, but you're likely surrounded by families. Ye Olde Ant and the Grasshopper fable.
So, in truth, it has to be a community effort. Easier said than done. If everyone stocks up some for their neighbors as well, it can go much easier.
https://youtu.be/XjZ5mAXcAy0?si=1CfLMxuqmZ7wYI-r
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/education/earth/hurricanes-new...
4 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22072494
3 years ago (related link to Wikipedia page): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27045463
10 months ago about warm liquid from the fault: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35559145
* tectonic plate(s) subduction earthquake
* tsunami
* volcanism
* wildfire
* Arctic outflow weather pattern
* landslides
* solufluction
It was originally a long-form blog post by Michal Zalewski and he turned into a book with even more content.
Truly the two ends of the continent.
Cape Spear and Attu Station would like a word with you. I'm sure you meant ''continental U.S.A.'' sort of.