Posted on 07/16/2015 11:03:50 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Northwest region is 72 years overdue for next big earthquake, experts say
One of Oregon’s top earthquake experts predicts the “really big one” will wipe out the entire Northwest. In fact, the area’s FEMA director said everything west of I-5 “will be toast”.
Andrew Phelps, director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, says there will be 6 minutes of shaking when the 'really big' quake hits. (KOIN) Andrew Phelps, director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, says there will be 6 minutes of shaking when the ‘really big’ quake hits. (KOIN) In The New Yorker article “The Really Big One”, Northwest FEMA Director Kenneth Murphy predicts 13,000 people will die in what’s referred to as the “Cascadia Earthquake and Tsunami”. Another 2,500 people are expected to be hurt in the devastating quake.
The article quotes an Oregon State University scientist who said the odds of the “really big one” are 1 in 10, especially since the area is 72 years overdue.
“You’d be pretty hard-pressed to find a hazard of this magnitude that could essentially cut off lifelines and supply chains and structures for 2 weeks,” Andrew Phelps, director of the Oregon Office of Emergency Management, told KOIN 6 News.
According to Phelps, once the “really big one” hits, Portlanders should expect up to 6 minutes of shaking. Then come the landslides, followed by a 50-foot high tsunami. In The New Yorker’s article, Seaside’s city planner said people there will only have 10-30 minutes to get out.
“Along the coast, it’s going to be a bad day for the state of Oregon, that’s for sure,” Phelps said. “But again, you can’t do everything to prevent hazards, but we can try to prevent those hazards from becoming disasters.”
Phelps said he recommends having an emergency preparedness kit ready with 2 weeks worth of supplies.
By this summer, Portland Public Schools will have updated nearly half of its buildings to meet earthquake standards. State agencies released a new book with step-by-step directions to ensure they’re working together.
“You want to say, in a perfect world this is never going to happen, but historically that just hasn’t been the case,” Phelps said.
The New Yorker’s article also cites an Oregon safety policy group that estimates it could take up to 3 months after the quake to restore electricity. It could take another 6 months to fix major highways in the region and a year for sewer services to get back up to speed.
Interesting all this is news a week or two after the Supreme Court made homosexual marriage the law of the land...
Seventy-two years is about one nanosecond in geologic time....
Yet another reason for a LOT of people to prep.
For some reason, this story is popping up in a variety of places for me right now. It is getting some general interest traction out there.
When Oregon slides into the ocean
Like the mystics and statistics say it will
I predict the local dispensary will be standing
Until I pay my bill
Apologies to the late, great Warren Zevon for mangling “Desperados Under The Eaves”.
Liberal Preppers....oh the irony.
Well, two weeks is better than nothing I guess. Maybe a better plan would be to every month for the next year you add a week’s worth of supplies to the preps.
“The New Yorker’s article also cites an Oregon safety policy group that estimates it could take up to 3 months after the quake to restore electricity. It could take another 6 months to fix major highways in the region and a year for sewer services to get back up to speed.”
6 months? Major highways? That means supplies will still be distributed 6 months later.
Seattle - Portland - Vancouver, B.C. used to have a mutual aid response thing going on. Until they learned of the Cascadia Fault which could devastate all three cities. Now Seattle will be served from the east. There is a large airfield used by Boeing at Moses Lake, about a three hour drive from Seattle. The mountain pass highways would probably be knocked out. So the plan is to fly supplies into Moses Lake, and then helicopter them to Seattle.
There might be an option of driving supplies two hours west of Moses lake and then using the choppers.
Anyway - two weeks supplies is not enough. Heck - many years ago a heavy snow/ice storm knocked out the power and the gas and stores for 10 days where I lived (Seattle suburb). Granted, the water still ran and the natural gas (water heater) still worked thank goodness.
I think such a large scale disaster as predicted might make the whole area untenable. In that regard, mobility would better serve someone, wouldn’t it?
About all I know is that if it were me and where I live, I’d hunker down with what I have and protect it, and be as unnoticed as I could be.
Yes - the thing about averages is, it could be 72 years, it could be 720 years. But, the following excerpt has some additional information. The cycles of major events are not in the millions of years.
The Goldfinger-led study took four years to complete and is based on 13 years of research. At 184 pages, it is the most comprehensive overview ever written of the Cascadia Subduction Zone....
This segmentation is reflected in the region’s earthquake history, Goldfinger noted.
“Over the past 10,000 years, there have been 19 earthquakes that extended along most of the margin, stretching from southern Vancouver Island to the Oregon-California border,” Goldfinger noted. “These would typically be of a magnitude from about 8.7 to 9.2 – really huge earthquakes.
“We’ve also determined that there have been 22 additional earthquakes that involved just the southern end of the fault,” he added. “We are assuming that these are slightly smaller – more like 8.0 – but not necessarily. They were still very large earthquakes that if they happened today could have a devastating impact.”...
“By the year 2060, if we have not had an earthquake, we will have exceeded 85 percent of all the known intervals of earthquake recurrence in 10,000 years,” Patton said. “The interval between earthquakes ranges from a few decades to thousands of years. But we already have exceeded about three-fourths of them.”
“I’d hunker down with what I have and protect it, and be as unnoticed as I could be.”
My kids love “The Walking Dead”. And of course they are always coming up with ideas. (”I would go to Costco, and then build a tunnel to get to the Lowes hardware store - man- we’d be set!”). And while the odds of Zombies is very low (although some animals CAN take over other animals! And rabies effect’s one’s brain and takes over certain functions...)
I have tried to point out that there are real-life situations (such as a major earthquake - we’re near Seattle or economic collapse) that could turn our area into something similar to the Walking Dead.
Except instead of slow-moving stupid zombies it could be gangs of roaming people, hungry and armed. “So NOW what will you do? Prepare for that - not some imaginary zombie!”
Not presenting yourself as a target of easy opportunity would be one thing. Lit up house at night? Hell no. Cut your grass and such? No....stay out of sight and leave only when you have to, IMO. Having a few semi-auto weapons and PLENTY of ready loaded magazines would be a definite must.
The kind of ‘zombies’ we’d get wouldn’t want to work hard for what they take and they’d look for low hanging fruit.
A great earthquake is prophesied at the time of the Messiah’s coming (return) that devastates the coasts. The coasts are mentioned often.
https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=coast&qs_version=NASB
Will be fun to watch on TV.
NO WAY. The guys is wrong. It’s 71 years late. Not 72.
I wonder if that would interact in any way with the Yosemite volcano.
Yosemite is a Caldera, or super volcano. Overdue already, and when it goes it will make Mt St Helens look like a popcorn fart. Thought to be capable of covering the western half of the US with up to 6 feet or more of ash, and producing an ash cloud that could block the sun for months on end.
Also not that far away, geologically speaking, so is it possible one could set off the other? Then you have to consider the San Andreas fault, which is also not far away and overdue for a big earthquake as well. The ones we’ve seen int he 20th century have been relatively tame compared to what this article talks about and a really major quake along the San Andreas.
If I were out there I wouldn’t be worrying about stocking up, I’d be seriously thinking about moving here to Texas...it might be far enough away to not get shook all to hell or covered in 6 feet of ash...maybe...
And if one sets off the other, it will destroy the entire western US. If the one in Oregon, San Andreas and Yosemite all set each other off...it will be a year at least before you can expect help to be able to get close, even helicopters might not be able to fly in a huge ash cloud.
OK did a little digging, it seems this type of volcano can be initiated by an earthquake, and Yosemite may not need one to make it blow...
I’d be thinking about moving way east...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.