Let's Read -- Kathryn Schultz's Article in The New Yorker Magazine, July 20, 2015 Issue
The Really Big One
An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when.
Sometimes I read an article that makes me stop and think about the impact of any natural disaster on our community. And every now and then I read an article that makes me stop and ask myself the following questions - "Am I really prepared? What would I do? "Where would I go? "What could happen to my family?" "Is our community prepared for a major disaster?"
If you live in the coastal Northwest or are studying about the impact of a major earthquake would have on the Northwest, take the time to read Kathryn Shultz's article, "The Really Big One - An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when." You can find it in the July 20, 2015 issue of the New Yorker Magazine www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one?intcid=mod-most-popular
Setting the stage for discussion, Kathryn Shultz' writes....."The Pacific Northwest has no early-warning system. When the Cascadia earthquake begins, tere will be, instead, a cacophony of barking dogs and a long, suspended, what-was-that moment before the surface waves arrive. Surface waves are slower, lower-frequency waves that move the ground both up and down and side to side: the shaking, starting in earnest."
Remember the destruction from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku, Japan? According to the subject matter experts quoted in Shultz's article, " The odds of the big Cascadia earthquake happening in the next fifty years are roughly one in three." Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. He is quoted as saying, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast. FEMA projects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. Another twenty-seven thousand will be injured, and the agency expects that it will need to provide shelter for a million displaced people, and food and water for another two and a half million. ”
A statement by Chris Goldfinger brings the focus to the reality of a major incident in Norwest America, "...the gap between what we know and what we should do about it is getting bigger and bigger, and the action really needs to turn to responding. Otherwise, we’re going to be hammered. I’ve been through one of these massive earthquakes in the most seismically prepared nation on earth. If that was Portland, "said Goldfinger . He finished the sentence with a shake of his head before he finished it with words. “Let’s just say I would rather not be here."
If you live in the coastal Northwest or are studying about the impact of a major earthquake would have on the Northwest, take the time to read Kathryn Shultz's article, "The Really Big One - An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest. The question is when." You can find it in the July 20, 2015 issue of the New Yorker Magazine www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one?intcid=mod-most-popular
Setting the stage for discussion, Kathryn Shultz' writes....."The Pacific Northwest has no early-warning system. When the Cascadia earthquake begins, tere will be, instead, a cacophony of barking dogs and a long, suspended, what-was-that moment before the surface waves arrive. Surface waves are slower, lower-frequency waves that move the ground both up and down and side to side: the shaking, starting in earnest."
Remember the destruction from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Tohoku, Japan? According to the subject matter experts quoted in Shultz's article, " The odds of the big Cascadia earthquake happening in the next fifty years are roughly one in three." Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska. He is quoted as saying, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast. FEMA projects that nearly thirteen thousand people will die in the Cascadia earthquake and tsunami. Another twenty-seven thousand will be injured, and the agency expects that it will need to provide shelter for a million displaced people, and food and water for another two and a half million. ”
A statement by Chris Goldfinger brings the focus to the reality of a major incident in Norwest America, "...the gap between what we know and what we should do about it is getting bigger and bigger, and the action really needs to turn to responding. Otherwise, we’re going to be hammered. I’ve been through one of these massive earthquakes in the most seismically prepared nation on earth. If that was Portland, "said Goldfinger . He finished the sentence with a shake of his head before he finished it with words. “Let’s just say I would rather not be here."
