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Not Quite SMOD, But…?
In a comment on a post addressing the priorities of the moron-Mayor of Portland, Oregon, I brought up the Big One. Or the Really Big One.
Back in 2015, a fascinating, if alarming, essay was published in the New Yorker. Its author described a terrifying and inevitable cataclysm centered on the Cascadian Subduction Zone off the west coast and affecting a huge area stretching from northern California to British Columbia. A BBC documentary on the same subject summarized the topic thus: “One day, the people of the Pacific Northwest will face a megathrust earthquake of a magnitude up to 9.2 on the Richter Scale.” Following which, there will be a gigantic tsunami.
Prompted by the New Yorker article, some of us had a long conversation here about the science, history, and destructive potential of the Big One. Here’s a brief recap: About 100 miles offshore, two of the earth’s huge plates are wedged together. For reasons best known to itself, one of these — the Juan de Fuca plate — has been attempting to push under the North American plate. The North American plate resists, because that’s apparently what plates do.
The plates have been at this for a bazillion years, and for a bazillion years, the result has been periodic earthquakes followed by tsunamis. A build-up of energy that results when irresistible force meets immovable object is intervals discharged, and the resulting destruction — lather, rinse, repeat — is discernible in the geologic and human record. After some belated but darned spiffy scientific detective work, geologists have determined that we are due — even overdue — for what is likely to be the largest natural disaster in US history.
The best-case scenario — the (merely) Big One — is that the fault partially ruptures, leading to a merely catastrophic earthquake along the lines of the one that devastated Japan in 2011. There’s about a 1-in-3 chance of that happening before 2050. The Really Big One would follow the apocalyptic rupture of the entire fault — odds of that are about 1-in-10.
It bears repeating: this is inevitable and though the fault could hold its fire for a hundred years, it could just as easily go kablooey (or KABLOOEY) this afternoon.
Because Europeans did not arrive in the Pacific Northwest until 100 years after the last Big One, because the Indians didn’t record these events in writing and because — Big Ones aside — it’s an otherwise geologically quiet region, European settlement has proceeded for the past two centuries without realizing or responding to the risk. All those buildings, skyscrapers, the Space Needle? Many, if not most, were not built to withstand even less powerful earthquakes, let alone the one that’s coming. Neither were the fuel storage facilities, the highways and bridges, the hospitals, schools, nursing homes, euthanasia/abortion centers, fire stations, police stations, social workers’ offices, airports…
You know those old buildings we see on the videos (when they aren’t yanked quickly off the air) that are now covered in graffiti? You know the overpasses from which the peaceful protesters hurl insults and bricks and under which the homeless have been encouraged to set up encampments?
Great news about the single-use plastics, the advances in trans rights, the strong, powerful womxn promoted to high office, the encouragement of all those activists hurling insults, bricks, and fireworks against police officers; good job defying and maligning the efforts of the government in DC.
But what’s the plan for dealing with this?
The destruction it would cause is unimaginable.
Voting by mail.
The plan for the quake is to blame Trump. All first responders will have been defunded by then and tent cities will comprise majorities in four or five west coast congressional districts. The good news is that local governments will be incapable of doing actual casualty counts or property damage assessments so it won’t sound as bad as it will actually be. The US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Woke Tribal Areas will not have the resources to do much to help.
This name puts the woke “zones” to shame. Science wins again.
I thought “subduction” was a type of micro aggression.
The problem is that science—or rather, what science studies, that is, the workings of reality—really does win.
Re-reading the New Yorker article, I kept wondering how much of the money and energy spent on climate alarmism and useless “awareness” could instead be going to deal with this?
Okay, I’ll admit to just the teeniest bit of …anticipatory schadenfreude? Not that I want thousands to die, or that entire region to be rendered uninhabitable for dozens if not hundreds of years…but this is the attraction of apocalypse, isn’t it? “You wanted those statues gone? You wanted civilization transformed/ dismantled/defunded/destroyed so you could start over and do it right? Well, here ya go!”
All the nonsense-about-nothing presently causing convulsions in Portland (et al) would instantly be placed into proper perspective if the ground begins to shake beneath those mostly-peaceful Doc Martens.
It’s actually a megamacroaggression. Sort of like the killer whale that you don’t notice has swallowed you until it closes its mouth. It’s always been there, you just didn’t know you were already doomed.
By the way, a year ago Kathryn Schultz offered a kind of update to her original New Yorker article. Among other things, she reports,
“Last week, the governor of Oregon signed a law that, among other things, overturns a 1995 prohibition on constructing new public facilities within the tsunami-inundation zone. When the law, known as HB 3309, goes into effect, municipalities will be free to build schools, hospitals, prisons, other high-occupancy buildings, firehouses, and police stations in areas that will be destroyed when the tsunami strikes. (Individuals and private entities were already allowed to build everything from hotels to nursery schools to nursing homes in the inundation zone.) Put differently, the law makes it perfectly legal to use public funds to place vulnerable populations—together with the people professionally charged with responding to emergencies and saving lives—in one of the riskiest places on earth.”
Bewildered, Schultz asks: How did a law with such high stakes sail through the Oregon legislature, where Democrats hold a majority, with a combined eighty-four votes in favor and just five opposed?
Because the Democrats hold a majority?
No. Can’t be that. Republicans are the Party of Evil. They must be secretly pulling the strings.
Someone paid them to do it to raise the value of land they bought in the zone at depressed prices under the ban. Every vote is bid on and the winners profit can be reinvested in the next vote. You think the Clintons were the only corrupt politicians?
This has actually been on the public radar here for 20 or 30 years. All new buildings and highways are built to withstand the big one, and many older ones have been retrofitted. I had my house built 27 years ago and it has features to withstand earthquakes.
Of course there would still be unbelievable devastation as many of the older structures haven’t been upgraded.
As for a tsunami, Portland is 60 miles upriver, so much of its force would be expended before it got that far. The coastal towns would be devastated, but they are small and of much less economic importance.
Myself, I’m waiting for the Yellowstone caldera to blow.
Yeah, that was really stupid. The dumbest part is that the coastal communities were the ones pushing for it.
Tsunami annihilates blue states
Yellowstone annihilates red states
Priorities!
Those are the people who own the land there,
The earthquake, by itself, would be devastating however. In the short term, it would cause any number of corollary disasters; fires, landslides, explosions, damage to vulnerable infrastructure that would leave the city without power, water, medical care or communications capacity. The airports have not (at last check) been rendered earthquake-proof which, along with all those damaged roads, collapsed bridges, severed rail links and innundated ports, will leave precious few options for those who would bring supplies and assistance from outside the affected area. And the affected area is large–the capitals of both Washington and Oregon are well within it, for example.
Then there’s the problem of refugees. Those in the inundation area would either escape or die; there doesn’t seem to be another option. But the survivors who managed to scramble to higher ground will then be homeless and probably destitute. They will need to be housed and fed…where? And how will they be transported to the refugee areas?
Here’s another cherry for your cake: the Cascadian Subduction Zone is also connected to the San Andreas fault..and so the CSZ earthquake could be accompanied by a sibling earthquake further South. That one would probably peak out at 6.0 or so, not terrible, but a bit distracting for Californians who might otherwise be able and willing to lend resources to the northern neighbors. I read somewhere that the Cascade mountains are volcanic—and that the earthquake could possibly trigger (?) volcanoes.
Wahoo!
Schultz, by the way, gives an obligatory shout-out to Climate Change, linking our failure to face the ominous potential of the CSZ to our failure to recognize and respond to the urgent dangers of global warming.
Naturally, I think she’s wrong. The science really is settled about the CSZ—and there is even broad consensus about what would need to be done about it. What she has demonstrated, in her follow-up article, is that Democrats are useless even by their own lights. If you’re worried about Climate Change, don’t bother voting accordingly. It won’t make any difference.
The expense is staggering to mitigate against an event that is mostly unpredictable, if catastrophic, in the future. No one wants to spend millions of dollars today to retrofit old buildings to withstand an earthquake that may not happen in their lifetime. Every so often, the Seattle Times does a story on how unprepared Seattle is for the “big one”, because downtown is built on fill, and would collapse into Puget Sound very quickly. Many might cheer if that happened.
We in Everett have been warned that our biggest risk is the eruption of Glacier Peak, in the Cascades to the west of us.
Because a tiny little bit of common sense sneaked in for a moment one day?
On a much shorter (probably) time frame, the biology of SARS-CoV-2 and it’s human hosts, will be shown to matter much more than public policy prescriptions that confuses preventing the medical system from being overwhelmed with stopping the disease.
This, by itself, should tell any sentient environmentalist voter that voting for Democrats is completely pointless. And I’d be willing to concede that it probably means it’s pretty pointless to vote for any politician if you want them to see to preparations for a certain but unpredictable disaster.
The CSZ isn’t one of those Al Gore-esque “crises” in which Al intones woodenly about mythical rising seas and then buys beachfront property…if they can’t grasp the message from Indonesia and Japan and translate it into doing something sensible, practical and self-sacrificing to improve the odds of survival for their neighbors and friends, they certainly aren’t going to knock themselves out for the people of the planet.
Sure it’s murder, but those politicians have beach houses to pay for.
Exactly! I’d love to ask Ms. Schultz whether she connects the dots on this? That is, that Democrats (and, I’m sure, Republicans too) presumably believe in the Cascadia Subduction Zone. They presumably believe that it will create an unpredictable but nonetheless inevitable sudden, violent crisis in which moments count. There is plenty of experience to tell us both what will happen, and what will make the difference between a dreadful but survivable event and armageddon…and, for that matter, I’d guess that many of the mitigation measures would “help” in the case of climate change too (“the seas will rise” whether slowly or swiftly). And yet…
An Oregon school superintendent she interviews points out that all the schools in his district but one are in the inundation zone—that is, the area that will be underwater when the tsunami arrives. He proposed building a new public school campus on high ground. The bond measure was voted down by area voters, who didn’t want to pay higher taxes. So the schools remain where they are. Fingers crossed, kids!
Because this strikes me as very different from climate change—that is, it looks to me like a real thing and one that progressives don’t seem inclined to hype and then utilize as a political bludgeon—I’d be interested to know whether our Pacific Northwestern Ricochetti have thoughts about the best way to prepare for such an event (or whether it could or should be prepared for at all?).
It certainly seems that no matter how loony any idea happens to be, if you factor saving the planet into the idea, it is much easier to pass the law.
So if only we could twist their Global Climate Alarm science on its head to state that buildings of any kind built within 10 miles of a coastline caused twice as much CO2 emissions as buildings built elsewhere, we would have a shot at more sensible land polices.
But here’s a question for you Granny Dude, if you know: would the sorta Big One that could hit by 2050, would that event’s resulting tsunami affect things five miles in? Or ten miles in? How far inland do catastrophically big tsunamis end up tearing up everything around them?
Scientific terms such as you used tend to confuse the average reader. I suggest you substitute “boatload” for “gazillion” and “boom” for “kablooey”. Just my two cents worth . . .
Kabam!
Here on the Atlantic side, our constant reminders are hurricanes and beach erosion. We don’t have volcanoes (right now) or much in the way of earthquakes, and it’s been 35 million years since a meteorite formed the Chesapeake Bay (a gift from above, complete with blue crabs). The impact at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay it formed a crater that today is 53 miles wide and 4/5ths of a mile deep and fractured the bedrock to five miles deep. The meteor exploded in the atmosphere and hit an area about two miles wide.
That can happen anywhere, anytime, with no defense. NASA et.al. is a long way from doing something about that, and asteroid strikes will happen. The Chicxulub Crater in Yucatan is 93 miles in diameter and 66 million years old and was a major extinction event worldwide. The Chesapeake event does not appear to have caused even a continental level extinction event, so there are always those sorts of possibilities.
And we have built epically on the chain of glorified sandbars that make up the barrier islands of the intracoastal waterway running from Boston around Florida to Brownsville, TX and every storm and especially hurricanes steal sand. The Atlantic has a wide sandy shelf Left to themselves, erosion and sediment move the sandbars along the coast.
Put a few 100,000 ton condominium buildings on a large sandbar and you better hope they anchored it to the bedrock. And there’s a reason the ocean keeps getting closer. They have big dozers they use to push sand up on the beach from the shallows, so that gentle slope I knew in my youth with several sandbars between the beach and open ocean is now one or two sandbars at most. Every couple of years the taxpayers pay for a major replenishment which never really reverses the damage. At some point we will need to put pontoons on the buildings, but they will be depreciated and dilapidated by that point.
Hurricanes can play hob with the barrier. in 1933 a hurricane cut an inlet at what is now the southern end of Ocean City, MD, and the northern end of Assateague Island. Hurricanes can be deadly, the farther south the more likely, but there’s more warning than tidal waves.
I speculate sometimes on a tidal wave event that leaves the skyscrapers elevated only by their bedrock support, but that would be moving an awful lot of sandbar. Maybe Sam Raimi will see this and give it a try.
Yes, not least because its namesake glaciers would melt and mix with lava, rock and ash to form lahars, boiling hot mudflows. Mt Rainier presents an even greater risk in this regard, since it’s cloaked with about 3 billion tons of ice, by far the most of any mountain in the lower 48. Practically every town in every valley between the mountain and Puget Sound is built on top of old and not-so-old lahars. Both volcanoes are very much live, they’ve just been steaming gently for so long that people have tended to forget.
The USGS has excellent resources here:
https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/glacier_peak/glacier_peak_hazard_88.html
and here:
https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mount_rainier/hazard_summary.html
Word on the street is that’s a thousand years away.
Good report MartinB.
The 1700 earthquake was probably bigger than 9.2 being that parts of the Oregon coast actually by some analysis fell into the sea.
Al French, a 9 plus packs an incredible wallop of which the structurally engineering community has only a vague idea of how to deal with. I helped an in-law design a single story house along the Columbia river in the late 90’s and the local building department plan checker had no idea of basic seismic design, to give you an idea of how up to date they were. The last time I checked, the national based building codes still have the Oregon/Washington area at a lesser seismic risk than California which is an absolute joke because a biggie in Oregon has the potential to be hundreds of times stronger than a “biggie” here in LA.
All that said, I think there is only so much preparedness one can do and shutting down whole areas on the remote chance that there might be a devastating earthquake or volcanic eruption is just crazy.
Even then we may be going into a “Grand Solar Minimum” which have been associated throughout history with massive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions as well as a decrease in sun spots and global temperature. No amount of preparedness will prepare you for a big event at the Yellowstone Caldera.
The earthquake will probably trigger the caldera.
There are the New Madrid Fault and the Charleston Fault.
Tom Lehrer has his cheery take on the bomb. https://youtu.be/frAEmhqdLFs