20 ms·
An earthquake could destroy a sizable portion of the coastal Northwest (2015)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- forrest2 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megathrust_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megathrust_earthquake An absolutely nuts quote from the article -- "the northwest edge of the continent [...] will drop by as much as six feet and rebound thirty to a hundred feet to the west"
- adamhi 4y ago> Kenneth Murphy, who directs FEMA’s Region X, the division responsible for Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, says, “Our operating assumption is that everything west of Interstate 5 will be toast.” I remember when this article came out, my mom called me and said "you'll be okay, you're east of I-5, right?" "Yeah mom." About 6 blocks east. Plenty of cushion.
- ripper1138 4y agoHa… it’s not like the earthquake will stop at I-5 like it’s a magic shield. If the quake knocks out utilities and services everywhere west of the cascades, this I-5 ‘line’ is meaningless.
- kurthr 4y agoYes, but it won't be toast... it will be the hash and eggs that go with the toast!
- verdverm 4y agoI believe they are referring to the tsunami that follows the earthquake, based on evidence from before the Europeans colonized the continent.
- mannykannot 4y agoWhile some sections of I-5 are probably within the tsunami zone, I think much of it is beyond it. IIRC (I have not read the article since its original publication) this rule-of-thumb encompasses all the posited earthquake's structural and infrastructural damage at a level calling for FEMA-level assistance. The remark is clearly only intended to give an impression of the magnitude of the worst-case scenario.
- itza1 4y agoThey are not—simply the shaking. The tsunami will only be a few feet tall at most in that part of Puget Sound.
- rootusrootus 4y agoAt least in Oregon, I-5 is 50 miles away from the coast and separated from it by a small mountain range. I don't think we're too worried about tsunamis getting all the way to I-5. Definitely will get to Highway 101 in some spots, however. But a lot of the coastline is tall enough that you can usually find a safe place nearby if a tsunami warning sounds.
- verdverm 4y agoYou didn't read the article, this is exactly what they are talking about
- shagie 4y ago> But a lot of the coastline is tall enough that you can usually find a safe place nearby if a tsunami warning sounds. I recall driving US-101 in Oregon some years back and kept seeing "Tsunami evacuation route" signs. https://www.oregon.gov/oem/Documents/Tsunami_Evacuation_Signage_and_Wayfinding_Guidance.pdf https://www.oregon.gov/oem/Documents/Tsunami_Evacuation_Sign...
- Fatnino 4y agoWe have those all along the Pacific coast.
- bell-cot 4y agoTrue in some ways...but looking at a map of "% of population surviving the initial tsunami" would probably reveal a fuzzy north-south line. That'll be kinda important to FEMA. (From the tone of "About 6 blocks east. Plenty of cushion.", I'll guess that actual topographic maps don't give adamhi much cause for optimism.)
- originalvichy 4y agoThat’s the joke.
- thanatos519 4y agoCity blocks, or Minecraft blocks? :D
- andrepd 4y agoAka metres x)
- CapitalistCartr 4y agoAnd you never venture West of it, right?
- dieselgate 4y agoThis made me laugh as I'm about 2 blocks West of Hwy 5 in wa
- zw123456 4y agoThe article is from 2015
- bee_rider 4y agoOnly 293 years left :(
- caycep 4y agoeh...the timing is from that quake in 1700, tsunami from which devastated Edo Japan
- zw123456 4y agoI like the comments, but I was just noting that the original post did not contain the requisite (2015) in the title, but I see that has been fixed now.
- dont__panic 4y agoFortunately we've been geoengineering heavily since 2015. If we work hard enough, we can change the planet so much that "the big one" never arrives!
- bitwize 4y agoDon't get too comfortable if you're on the East Coast. Whatever survives sea level rise due to global heating, will be wiped out by the megatsunami caused by the ensuing landslide when La Palma erupts.
- the_gipsy 4y agoIsn't that theory from some total nutjob?
- robin_reala 4y agoNo, but the consensus is that the intial modelling wasn’t accurate enough in several areas, which when updated leads to a much lower risk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumbre_Vieja_tsunami_hazard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumbre_Vieja_tsunami_hazard
- mannykannot 4y agoIt is not exactly a volcanic eruption that is the threat, but the collapse of the flank of the island (which might cause or be triggered by an eruption.) I believe Hawai'i presents a similar risk, and undersea avalanches (such as the prehistoric Storegga slides in the Norwegian Sea) pose a tsunami threat in many parts of the world not noted for their earthquake risk.
- yosito 4y agoDidn't La Palma erupt in the last two years?
- WarOnPrivacy 4y agoMy East Coast tsunami money is on a submarine landslide. Long odds but what a payout. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=us+east+coast+submarine+landslide https://duckduckgo.com/?q=us+east+coast+submarine+landslide In theory tho, a well placed earthquake could bump those odds https://geology.com/noaa/atlantic-ocean-tsunami/ https://geology.com/noaa/atlantic-ocean-tsunami/
- 4y ago
- neilv 4y agoThe last several years, every time I consider the idea of someday moving back to Portland, I always think of this "The Big One" article. (With my mixed luck, the PNW mega-shark-quake-nami is just waiting for me to move back, so that'd really be irresponsible of me.)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- b3morales 4y agoAre there not natural disaster risks everywhere? Floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes...
- fullstackchris 4y agoThe northeast is pretty damn 'safe', as long as you can handle the occassional downed tree and subsequent power outage.
- objectivetruth 4y agoFloods, fires, tornadoes, and hurricanes only produce grave threats to the individual towns, cities, and maybe some multi-county regions that they cross. For individual incidents, we're relatively prepared beforehand and we know how to respond afterward. There's no comparison to having nearly everything in multiple states obliterated to the point that rescue takes weeks or months to arrive. We're not equipped to instantly support millions of refugees in the US. Moving hundreds of thousands of people for Katrina was probably at the upper limit of what we can effectively do (for various definitions of "effectively"). A killer quake out west could have 10 million refugees.
- Blammar 4y agoExcept for an occasional mild snowstorm, Antarctica looks pretty safe (as long as you're upwind from Mt. Erebus.) 8-)
- Archelaos 4y agoAre there studies that analyse the effects of such an earthquake on the world's software infrastructure and thus on global economy?
- ece 4y agoIn other news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32443017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32443017
- forrest2 4y agoYeah this is what reminded me. Figured I'd revive the "mega earthquake" while the news was buzzing about the "mega flood".
- ece 4y agoMight as well make it a trifecta: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/western-megadrought-is-the-worst-in-1-200-years/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/western-megadrought-is-the-worst-in-1-200-years/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/western-megadroug...
- DrBazza 4y agoWhat is Microsoft's contingency plan for this? Or, in fact, the FAANG's and other west-coast tech companies? The effects of a Cascadia earthquake on the US and world economy would be "interesting".
- philjohn 4y agoI suppose it depends on data centre locations. Data centre on the west coast? I'd be wary, mostly central and east coast? Less of a worry.
- sitkack 4y agoAll the clouds will go down at the same time. The control planes for all them are heavily managed in Seattle.
- washbrain 4y agoAWS has lots of engineers in Seattle, but control plane is distributed. I'd personally expect a long delay in getting any fixes to things, but that many sites would be just fine.
- bee_rider 4y agoFor some reason I had the impression that us-east-1 was kind of the flagship for AWS, although actually typing that out seems quite silly.
- washbrain 4y agoIt is the flagship.
- DrBazza 4y agoBut are all the buildings on the MS campus, for example, "built to code"? (that's the US phrase isn't it). Do we reasonably expect most, let's say, post-80s buildings to survive a magnitude 9+?
- itza1 4y agoIt’s actually closer to every 500 years at the latitude Seattle and Portland are at. The 300 year figure only applies to the southern Oregon and Northern California portion of the fault, and is based on turbidities and controversial. Still, this is an under-appreciated risk of living in the northwest. There’s plenty of societies living in subduction zones across the planet. But few with as little awareness of their fault. I remember talking to transplants to Seattle, I’d say there’s a 50/50 percent chance they were aware the region could produce earthquakes. On the bright side: while we can never predict this for certain, it doesn’t appear there’s enough energy stored in the northern portion of the fault to produce a mega-thrust earthquake right now.
- phkahler 4y ago>> It’s actually closer to every 500 years at the latitude Seattle and Portland are at. Well that would be about every other time the southern end goes. In that case it's still overdue for the big one, but 270 years to go for the next very big one.
- Rediscover 4y agoI transplanted to the PNW back in the 1990s, knowing well about the quakes. Previously I lived up & down the U.S. east coast and also NE Ohio. That latter gets small quakes, too, but mostly we thought it was an heavy vehicle driving by.. https://earthquaketrack.com/us-OH-Cleveland/biggest https://earthquaketrack.com/us-OH-Cleveland/biggest 4.5 / 23 years ago, 4.0 / 3 years ago, 3.7 /15 ..., 3.9 / 21... Edit: s/thw/the/
- xwowsersx 4y agoI think the year of publication of this article — 2015 — should be in the title, no?
- bee_rider 4y agoIt is not a big difference in geological time.
- phkahler 4y ago>> It is not a big difference in geological time. When it was published we were 29.6 percent past the 243 year average cycle time. Now we are more than 32 percent past. No, it's not a big difference but we are meaningfully further along than when it was written ;-)
- xwowsersx 4y agohaha true
- toss1 4y agoBy the standards, of course, although considering that the topic is about events on a geologic timescale, a half a decade plus or minus doesn't change the relevance much ;-)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- uberchet 4y agoI remember reading this article when it came out. It's pretty terrifying.
- aporetics 4y agoIt’s worth reading Ms Schultz’s other articles; if you do, you may come to the conclusion I did, which is that she is a very skilled provocateur, and always finds just that angle in whatever topic she is investigating. Her hack job on Thoreau demonstrates this [0], in the selections of his writing that she reproduces and her at best inability to read his words (at worst willful misrepresentation them). It is easy to say that the “[Vision of Thoreau as a national conscience] cannot survive any serious reading of “Walden.”” It is much harder to know how to read Walden seriously. [0] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/19/pond-scum
- cronix 4y agoNick Zentner of Central Washington University did a really good talk about this article and some of it seems overblown, specifically the "west of I5 will be toast." They've placed GPS sensors throuout the PNW and one of the more interesting things is that Oregon and Washingtons land is working in a spiral, and the land is moving in a circular pattern. Also that the hot spot that creates Yellowstone used to be off the Oregon coast and traveled through Oregon, and Idaho before it reached where it currently is. It's left a trail of calderas that they're only now discovering. The hotspot stays in the same spot, but the earths crust moves over it changing it's position over time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW4D6OE7Qkc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW4D6OE7Qkc
- plipshevanel 4y agoI stumbled across one of Nick's Volcano lectures on Youtube about a year ago and was unexpectedly captivated to watch the entire thing, which lasted about an hour! As someone who has always held an interest in Geology and Deep History, I really appreciate his efforts to make his University content available to the public.
- cronix 4y agoYes, I should have said more about the channel. If only we could all have teachers who are so enthusiastic and makes topics very interesting and easy to follow! All of his content is very good and captivating. If anyone is interested in pacific northwest geology, I'd highly recommend watching more of his stuff. He also has his own personal channel separate from CWU here and still making new content: https://www.youtube.com/user/GeologyNick https://www.youtube.com/user/GeologyNick
- rnk 4y agoNick Z is the king of making it fun and informative to learn about geology. He has dozens of great videos.
- blueprint 4y agoI have seen many of his talks. that statement about west of i95 being toast is not incorrect. He made a very obvious point of the fact the energy released by this quake will be nearly 3 orders of magnitude greater than a 7. Coastline drops 30' and shifts 50'. 250 miles inland everything will move a foot still. do you have any idea how much fire, flooding, and death there will be?
- gradschool 4y agoI don't know how scientifically reliable this article is, but it gives me an idea. Could tsunami avoidance be an ideal use case for a jet pack? It doesn't need a lot of altitude or more than a few minutes of flight time, just easy rapid deployment without an airstrip. Some startup should be all over this. A combined package with an alarm triggered by an ultrasonic sensor would make a great sales pitch to well heeled customers living in that region. It might even lead to beneficial government policy changes by raising awareness of the danger when everybody who's not rich enough to afford one whinges about it on facebook.
- cguess 4y agoI'm not sure if this is satire? No, a jetpack is not an alternative for a tsunami. You'd have to: 1.) already be outside with it fueled and being worn. Tsunamis come quick if you're close enough to get seriously injured. If you're not then you just have time to get further inland. 2.) someone have a child-version (but what about infants?). Not sure about you but putting my nephews into a jet pack seems like a poor idea, they're fidgety in car seats. 3.) It's a jet pack, and you're flying. How is that possibly safe without regular maintenance and training for what would be a once in 1000 year event?
- tablespoon 4y agoI agree, because I really want to see some true-believer startup enthusiast going about their normal day with 100lbs of jetpack on their back, insisting it will be the next big thing.
- phkahler 4y agoWhen that article was written, it was 29.6 percent past the average cycle time. Now it is more than 32 percent past. Time just keeps on marching forward. I didn't see any mention of what the distribution of intervals is, but 32 percent past average seems a lot even for a long-tailed distribution.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- alsargent 4y ago“The brevity of our lives breeds a kind of temporal parochialism—an ignorance of or an indifference to those planetary gears which turn more slowly than our own.” … great point.