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Should I worry about the Pacific Northwest Megaquake?

#1
Magical Realist Offline
According to some alarmist articles, we here in Portland are all doomed to die in a long overdue 9.0 mega earthquake that will shake the Pacific Northwest from Vancouver BC to Salem OR. I ordered a small electric stove and a pot from Amazon last night. I have an outlet in my SUV. I will also buy about 30 packs of Vigo rice and beans this week. I was really worried last night. But alas, all is not lost. While such a quake is definitely likely, it's not like there's nothing we can do. And not everyone will be smothered to death in collapsed bulidings. Buildings built after 1990 are in accord with strict earthquake codes. Wooden frame buildings, like my apt complex, should be ok. And the new EEW alarm system should be in place in a matter of a few years, assuming my TV is on at the time of the quake. I breath easier now after reading this article, although I keep one chair removed from my dining room table to be able to scrurry under it when I have to.

http://tv.fusion.net/story/178175/earthq...northwest/


[Image: cascadiasubductionzone.png]
[Image: cascadiasubductionzone.png]

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#2
RainbowUnicorn Offline
(May 3, 2017 11:48 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: According to some alarmist articles, we here in Portland are all doomed to be devastated by an overdue 9.0 mega earthquake that will shake the Pacific Northwest from Seattle to Salem. I ordered a small electric stove and a pot from Amazon last night. I have an outlet in my SUV. I will also buy about 30 packs of Vigo rice and beans this week. I was really worried last night. But alas, all is not lost. While such a quake is definitely likely, it's not like there's nothing we can do. And not everyone will be smothered to death in collapsed bulidings. Buildings built after 1990 are in accord with strict earthquake codes. Wooden frame buildings, like my apt complex, should be ok. And the new EEW alarm system should be in place in a matter of a few years. I breath easier now, although I keep one chair removed from my dining room table to be able to scrurry under it when I have to.

http://tv.fusion.net/story/178175/earthq...northwest/


[Image: cascadiasubductionzone.png]
[Image: cascadiasubductionzone.png]




https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...%3Anull%7D
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#3
C C Offline
(May 3, 2017 11:48 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [...] I breath easier now after reading this article, although I keep one chair removed from my dining room table to be able to scrurry under it when I have to. http://tv.fusion.net/story/178175/earthq...northwest/


At least its inland location shelters Portland better from the 80 to 100 feet tsunami height than residences directly on the coast.

Quote:"We now know that the Pacific Northwest has experienced forty-one subduction-zone earthquakes in the past ten thousand years. If you divide ten thousand by forty-one, you get two hundred and forty-three, which is Cascadia’s recurrence interval: the average amount of time that elapses between earthquakes… we are now three hundred and fifteen years into a two-hundred-and-forty-three-year cycle.” [...] Furthermore, Vidale explains, only the southern part of the Cascadia subduction zone is past due for an event. The northern part, which is closer to the Pacific Northwest’s major cities — has caused fewer earthquakes, one every 500 or 600 years on average. That means that we’re, on average, about 200 to 300 years early for a quake in the north.


If looking at the intervals of the last six earthquakes that were "moment magnitude 8 or higher", it would seem very unusual for one to happen during the next 73 years. And still slightly eyebrow raising for the next 100 after that. The monkey wrench thrown in consists of "Recent findings conclude that the Cascadia subduction zone is more complex and volatile than previously believed....". But not clarified as to how that would seriously compromise or negate the significance of the mega-quake rate of occurrence since 600 BC.
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#4
Magical Realist Offline
Quote:At least its inland location shelters Portland better from the 80 to 100 feet tsunami height than residences directly on the coast.

I don't know what those people are going to do. If everyone tries to leave the Oregon coast at once, hwy 101 would be one big traffic jam. Hopefully it's high enough from the beach to save them from the tsunami if just getting to high ground is the objective. I don't know how much time the warning allows for. What a panic that will be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI3kDASUdVQ
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#5
Zinjanthropos Online
Couple years ago I was on Vancouver Island. Been there many times but never drove across to the Pacific side until then. Oddly the one thing I remember is seeing tsunami warning signs just about everywhere along the coast. I thought then that this warning won't really help me except to prepare to die should one be imminently close by. Even driving back through the island's mountainous interior I couldn't help but think that if big enough, the wave could reach me inland also. About the safest spot I determined was to be on the east side of the island. I have no doubt that a tsunami will once again, as it has ithrough geological history, strike the island. I pity those who won't get away.
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#6
Yazata Offline
(May 3, 2017 11:48 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: According to some alarmist articles, we here in Portland are all doomed to die in a long overdue 9.0 mega earthquake that will shake the Pacific Northwest from Vancouver BC to Salem OR.

It would be exciting, that's for sure. Provided you don't wind up dead.

A magnitude 9 is huge. The Indian Ocean tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands over thousands of miles was generated by an earthquake about that size. One in the Pacific west of you would almost certainly splash a huge tsunami into all of those little coastal Oregon towns (so long Tillamook, Newport and Coos Bay) and drive a wave past (and probably through) Astoria up the mouth of the Columbia. I don't know if it would reach as far as Portland. You could conceivably see flooding along the Columbia and Willamette.

The shaking would be intense too, especially if the epicenter was due west of you. Lots of buildings might collapse in Portland or be knocked off their foundations.

Quote:I ordered a small electric stove and a pot from Amazon last night. I have an outlet in my SUV. I will also buy about 30 packs of Vigo rice and beans this week.

Good idea. Here in California they are always preaching emergency preparedness. The electric power might remain out for some time. You're lucky you have your new SUV, that could be your emergency shelter for a while. Get a sleeping bag obviously, along with flashlights and maybe an electric lantern, and keep batteries fresh. You can buy emergency lanterns and even flashlights with cranks on them so that you can charge their batteries by hand and not have to worry about their going dead on you if you have to use them a lot. Get a battery radio too (maybe one with a crank), to hear the emergency announcements. (Your cellphone might not work, but they will probably get some kind of radio broadcast going with portable generators if need be.) Food and water will be problems because stores won't be open. It sounds like you are already on top of that one with your supplies. Hide a stash of emergency cash, since the ATMs won't be working. After a few days the National Guard, Red Cross and whatever will probably be arriving to provide some bare-bones emergency services. They may be stretched thin if the whole Pacific Northwest region is devastated along with Portland (especially the coast which might be pretty much wiped out), so don't expect much. Portland will recover (San Francisco is back after being totaled in 1906) but it will take some time.

Quote:I was really worried last night. But alas, all is not lost. While such a quake is definitely likely, it's not like there's nothing we can do. And not everyone will be smothered to death in collapsed bulidings. Buildings built after 1990 are in accord with strict earthquake codes. Wooden frame buildings, like my apt complex, should be ok.

Don't freak yourself out, MR. Just do what's in your power to prepare and don't worry about things you can't control. As CC says, the pundits saying that your mega-earthquake is due now might mean a century from now. 100 years is a lot of time to you and me (I'll be dead), but it's nothing in geological time. So it could happen a generation from now.

But it's going to happen...

https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/earthquakes/supplies.html

https://www.amazon.com/iRonsnow-Emergenc...ZM8KNTNJQK

(May 4, 2017 06:18 PM)Magical Realist Wrote:
Quote:At least its inland location shelters Portland better from the 80 to 100 feet tsunami height than residences directly on the coast.

I don't know what those people are going to do. If everyone tries to leave the Oregon coast at once, hwy 101 would be one big traffic jam. Hopefully it's high enough from the beach to save them from the tsunami if just getting to high ground is the objective. I don't know how much time the warning allows for. What a panic that will be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI3kDASUdVQ

If I was in one of those coastal towns when a tsunami warning came in, I wouldn't head north or south along the coast highway. I'd take a local road east, up the closest hill in the vicinity.

I believe that it's only a few minutes warning, there's not much time. You would need to head for the closest high ground.

(May 5, 2017 02:35 AM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Couple years ago I was on Vancouver Island. Been there many times but never drove across to the Pacific side until then. Oddly the one thing I remember is seeing tsunami warning signs just about everywhere along the coast. I thought then that this warning won't really help me except to prepare to die should one be imminently close by. Even driving back through the island's mountainous interior I couldn't help but think that if big enough, the wave could reach me inland also.

The scary thing about Vancouver Island is that it has fjords on the west side. A tsunami would roar out of the ocean into those, getting higher and higher as the channel narrowed. I would expect that places like Port Alberni could be wiped from the map.
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#7
Magical Realist Offline
I have stocked my frig with about a dozen water filled gallon milk jugs. I also stored 200 dollars in cash in with my Vigo rice and beans stash. That's all I can think of. Oh shit. I need candles too. I see myself cooking rice and beans out the back of my SUV for all the apt tenants that will be caught off guard. That's just the kind of person I am. We're all in this together. At least this should get us thru till FEMA and the Red Cross arrive with food relief. I live near a river so water is no problem. Now let's see if I sleep better at night..Smile
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#8
C C Offline
(Jun 15, 2017 08:54 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I have stocked my frig with about a dozen water filled gallon milk jugs. I also stored 200 dollars in cash in with my Vigo rice and beans stash. That's all I can think of. Oh shit. I need candles too. I see myself cooking rice and beans out the back of my SUV for all the apt tenants that will be caught off guard. That's just the kind of person I am. We're all in this together. At least this should get us thru till FEMA and the Red Cross arrive with food relief. I live near a river so water is no problem. Now let's see if I sleep better at night..Smile

Just watch out for the light-sensitive, albino mutants prowling in the ruins at night. Another reason to have the candles or a cook-fire going to ward them off.
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#9
Magical Realist Offline
(Jun 15, 2017 09:11 PM)C C Wrote:
(Jun 15, 2017 08:54 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: I have stocked my frig with about a dozen water filled gallon milk jugs. I also stored 200 dollars in cash in with my Vigo rice and beans stash. That's all I can think of. Oh shit. I need candles too. I see myself cooking rice and beans out the back of my SUV for all the apt tenants that will be caught off guard. That's just the kind of person I am. We're all in this together. At least this should get us thru till FEMA and the Red Cross arrive with food relief. I live near a river so water is no problem. Now let's see if I sleep better at night..Smile

Just watch out for the light-sensitive, albino mutants prowling in the ruins at night.  Another reason to have the candles or a cook-fire going to ward them off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZWy7q3AXy0
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