New Yorker Article About Possible Earthquake in the Pacific Northwest

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The article (by Kathryn Schulz) is a great combination of geology, history, and disaster movie.

There are many quotable sections. Almost arbitrarily, I've picked this one:

Wineglasses, antique vases, Humpty Dumpty, hip bones, hearts: what breaks quickly generally mends slowly, if at all. OSSPAC estimates that in the I-5 corridor it will take between one and three months after the earthquake to restore electricity, a month to a year to restore drinking water and sewer service, six months to a year to restore major highways, and eighteen months to restore health-care facilities. On the coast, those numbers go up. Whoever chooses or has no choice but to stay there will spend three to six months without electricity, one to three years without drinking water and sewage systems, and three or more years without hospitals. Those estimates do not apply to the tsunami-inundation zone, which will remain all but uninhabitable for years.
 
I work with a man who it utterly convinced the Yellowstone volcano is going to blow soon and put us into permanent winter. And now this...thank you for sharing. I think.
 
I think those estimates of what it will take to recover seem awfully pessimistic. I'm saying this based on both what happened in Japan and also the Loma Prieta quake. I started skimming the article after a while so maybe they give a reason why that area of the country would either take a harder hit to their infrastructure (like major pieces not being up to current earthquake standards) and/or take longer than normal to repair things.
 
How they discovered the subduction zone was most interesting. Thanks for sharing.
 
I have lived in California my whole life (well, except for a couple of years in Spain). I
have been en through a gazillion earthquakes.
1971 San Fernando Earthquake was the strongest. I was in college, and living quite close to Sylmar. I thought for sure I was going to look out my window and see San Francisco. The aftershocks for that one were big, and went on for days. My roommates and I practiced drop and cover, but when an aftershock came, we just ran in circles! Sixty-four people were killed, and lots and lots of damage.

And, being extra lucky, I lived in Northern California for Loma Prieta...........it was far enough away that my kids and I felt safe going over for our riding lesson. When we came back and saw the pictures we were horrified.
I remember is was Sukkot, and we had a lovely Sukkah in the yard. I was a little terrified about eating in what is built to be a temporary structure. I looked at my kids and asked if they thought we should eat out there. The oldest said "Um...........if g-d commanded us to eat in the Sukkah, this is probably not a good time to ignore him!"

That is all a long way to saying I have been hearing about "The Big One" all my life. That and cries of Armagddon come and go, just as the warnings of "The Big One" do. I can't imagine that the outlook on repair is anywhere near what the article predicts. And, I think the odds of it happening are about the same as having your plane crash. So, I for one, will worry about that on another day. :)
 
I too have heard of the 'big one' many times. Remember 2012, when the world was going to be destroyed?

I am not saying major disasters cannot happen, but worrying about them is pointless, since we don't have control over them. About Yellowstone volcanoes blowing up, I have read that it could be a million years before it happens.

The chances of human beings destroying each other (war, terrorism, etc.) are far greater than the extreme natural disasters like in that article. JMO. I have no scientific data to prove it.
 
I live in PNW. I am terrified of an earth quake, mostly since I grew up in a disaster free zone (Denmark). I am mostly worried about my fish tank, and glass all over the floor/streets.

A volcano eruption is way more likely, but less scary to me (I do not live in a 'mudflow evacuation zone').

speaking of Yellowstone, when we were there, and looking at all the geysers, a guy was there with some pre-teen/early teen kids, and more family. It looked like he was an uncle or something. He kept going on about the super volcano, and how everything would DIE once it went off. People living close by, you know, were the lucky ones. They would die instantly. People on the east coast, they would suffer! in a world without daylight, before finally dying off... on and on he went.
We ended up having about the same pace at the attractions, meaning that we would see them at geyser one, then again at a hot pool, then at geyser 2... and he went on, and on and on about this. Every. Single. Stop.
I am pretty sure if I was the parent of those poor kids, now probably too terrified to sleep at night, I would have been pretty upset :P
 
Cachoo said:
I work with a man who it utterly convinced the Yellowstone volcano is going to blow soon and put us into permanent winter. And now this...thank you for sharing. I think.
Click to expand...

I remember reading about Yellowstone in the Bill Bryson book A Short History of Nearly Everything. Freaked me out something fierce. I still remember how that one sentence gave me the chills and a few sleepless nights: "Yellowstone, it appears, is due."
 
On one hand, I wouldn't worry about all this stuff either. On the other hand, if I had a kid in one of those schools in Seaview mentioned in the article and they died in a tsunami, I'd never forgive myself.

Unsurprisingly, none of those parents wanted to pay the taxes to move the kids out of the submergence zone. So good luck.
 
I live half a mile from an earthquake fault. There is a school nearby (a couple blocks from our house). But the worst thing is that the fault runs right through town and the town built all these services surrounding a lake... that was made by making a slough along the fault bigger. It wasn't until after Loma Prieta that the city realized that, if our fault ever blew, they'd lose all the city services. Including the police headquarters! Oh and the main hospital is near the fault too.

What they did was slowly move services out farther from the fault line. There are still some services along the lake but they are non-essential. Like buildings the Rec dept. owns in order to supply rec services related to the lake and the park. By doing it slowly, they spread the costs out and that made it possible. If they'd tried to move them all out at once, it would have broken the city budget.
 
Well if we must face doom and gloom here is a fine scientist's findings about the sun:
Winter is Coming: Scientist Says Sun Will Nod Off in 15 Years

Might want to start stockpiling those down jackets: The sun could nod off by 2030, triggering what scientists are describing as a “mini ice age.”

Professor Vlentina Zharkova of Northumbira University presented the frigid findings at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno, Wales. Modern technology has made us able to predict solar cycles with much greater accuracy, and Zharkova’s model predicts that solar activity will drop by more than half between 2030 and 2040.

Solar activity was thought to be caused by a turbine-system of moving fluid within the sun. In search of a more accurate system of prediction, Professor Zharkova and her team discovered fluctuating magnetic waves in two layers of the sun. By studying the data of the dual waves, she says, predictions are far more precise.

“Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97 percent,” said Zharkova, whose findings were published by the Royal Astronomic Society.

Using this method, she and her team discovered that there will be far less solar activity in sun cycles 25 and 26, leading to a prolonged period of solar dormancy

“In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other -- peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun. Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other. We predict that this will lead to the properties of a ‘Maunder minimum’,” said Zharkova.

The Maunder Minimum is the title given to periods of time when sunspots are rare. It last occurred between 1645 and 1715, when roughly 50 sunspots were recorded, as opposed to the standard 40,000. That time was marked by brutal, river-freezing temperatures in Europe and North America.

-- Matt Berical

This looks survivable though no fun at all. I'm more afraid of quakes and volcanoes for now.
 
Boy. Hasn't been hot weather where I am. Even rained last week. This is California... That doesn't happen
 
I've lived in the PNW for 35 years. I was on the 40th floor of a downtown Seattle building during the 7.1 quake in 2001. After that, I take these things very seriously! Also, I'm a floor warden now, so I know that preparedness is vital. What surprised me about the article was the low number of fatalities predicted (13,000), and the length of time before electricity (1-3 months) and water (up to a year) would be reinstated.
 
A few moments ago there was just a 4.8 earthquake 23 miles north of Victoria, BC. I live about 45 miles east of Vancouver, so about 90 miles from Vancouver. It was kind of scary! The lamp on the shelves by my bed started to rattle and then the building started to shake. I'm on the third (top) floor of a wood-structure condo. When the building started to shake, I thought somebody was in the hallway behind my bedroom doing something weird/wild and thought, "what the he**"?? Then thought, "crap, this is an earthquake"! Had to get up and turn on the news to make sure I wasn't going crazy! I think I've felt a few earthquakes before, but much milder than this. Makes me realize how freaking scary it must be to be closer to the epicenter of an earthquake, or to experience an earthquake more sizeable than 4.8. I hope I never have to experience that. Or anyone else for that matter, although wishing something like that won't keep it from happening. Okay, now I'm going to try to go to sleep.......!
 
Yes, that was definitely the strongest one I've felt for a long time. Oddly enough none of my dishes rattled, but I felt the couch shake and the floor almost rock.

Very happy to be in a solidly built concrete building ... :eek:
 
We are in Vancouver had a bit of a shake in the living room a bit earlier - stuff fell off the coffee table and both the dog and cat panicked briefly - and we wondered if there had been a quake. But it was more than six minutes ago.
 
I was up late watching a documentary on Anne Boleyn and i thought a truck crashed into the house - then wondered why and how the truck was in the backyard. Then I realized it was an earthquake and ran for the doorway so I would get there before my brother. :slinkaway But it stopped before I took more than a step or two.

It did however knock books off my shelves which in turn buried my half finished earthquake kit which isn't really half finished because it only had pants, an axe and an old pair of hiking boots!!
 
MacMadame said:
I think those estimates of what it will take to recover seem awfully pessimistic. I'm saying this based on both what happened in Japan and also the Loma Prieta quake. I started skimming the article after a while so maybe they give a reason why that area of the country would either take a harder hit to their infrastructure (like major pieces not being up to current earthquake standards) and/or take longer than normal to repair things.
Click to expand...

I don't think this is that pessimistic. Japan is the most prepared country for earthquakes and the 2011 one, combined with a tsunami, still killed what -15,000? And they're the ones who ARE prepared. Only recently have we begun seismically upgrading buildings and I'm the only one at work with an earthquake kit. The PNW and BC are nowhere near prepared. Even our yearly EQ drills are treated as jokes.
 
According the the US data I googled last night, the quake I felt here in Vancouver at about 11:30pm was a 4.9 centered about 14 miles north, northwest of Victoria. The Canadian data this morning is saying 4.3. It was a good rumble, the most I have felt for many years, but still just a rumble lasting under a minute.
 
^ Yes, "just a rumble" and no damage reported. But inevitably these minor quakes remind us of what could be coming.

And I for one am reminded that I haven't refreshed the food in my emergency kits for a while. :(
 
smurfy said:
What documentary? what channel?? I love anything relating to that era. Thanks.
Click to expand...

It was actually on YouTube called Henry and Anne - Lovers who changed history. It's hosted by Suzannah Lipscomb and has two parts and I was watching the second one.

I just discovered Chrome Cast which broadcasts YouTube from my phone to my tv so I've been watching all these documentaries that I wouldn't see otherwise. :)
 
Cachoo said:
I work with a man who it utterly convinced the Yellowstone volcano is going to blow soon and put us into permanent winter. And now this...thank you for sharing. I think.
Click to expand...

Well, TECHNICALLY, if it operates on the same "cycle" it has, the Yellowstone supervolcano is due, but 'due' is in geologic terms, meaning a window of thousands of years....
 
Isn't that the same with the "big one" here in the PNW and BC? We're due for one but it's like between now and 300 years or something like that!! :)
 
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