Thanks for this fascinating bit of quake history.
I hope this piece of history never repeats itself!
A large earthquake on the Cascadia Fault zone has happened 13 times in the last 6000 years. We are probably overdue for the next one.
The New Yorker article is a scary one. Very well written. Is probably written on the scarier side to bring attention to the issues. The gal that wrote the article got a lot of push back and emails, etc. from public officials, etc.
IIRC, she said that in Seattle, west of interstate I-5 would be trashed.
Some official said that she was wrong and being a scare-monger that everything west of I5 would be destroyed.
She replied something like “I said it would be trashed, not destroyed. But from the official estimates there would be 70% of the people without water (or sewer), 60% without electricity, 80% of the bridges into Seattle would be non-drivable - and these conditions would last for a minimum of 6 weeks. That sounds like “trashed” to me.”
I know I’m off on the numbers, but it was something like that. I might be optimistic on the 6 weeks.
Seattle used to have emergency mutual aid with Portland and Vancouver, B.C. After discovery of the Cascadia Fault Zone the cities are partnered with cities to the east. The I-5 corridor will be non-drivable.
For Seattle, supplies will be flown into Moses Lake 150 miles to the east. Huge airport for testing airplanes. Then loaded on to trucks to a staging area near the pass on I-90. Then loaded onto helicopters and flown 40(?) miles to Seattle.
It is going to take a long time to even get a bottle of water to somebody stuck in Seattle.