Documentary on how ill-prepared Oregon is for the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. (Eugene: apartment complex, homes)

[Shooting Stars]

Originally Posted by PNW-type-gal

Add liquefaction to that list. A lot of low-lying places in Oregon are built on former mud flats, river over-bank deposits, dredge-fill, loss or sand. Those are all pretty susceptible to liquefaction.

It will definitely be parts of the coast where the effects are the worst, in part because parts of Highway 101 are already in trouble because of unsuitable base prep/geology or are in slide-prone areas.

The other issues are: how long will roads/fresh water/electricity/sewer/fire/police services be cut off? How long can you get along without a supermarket run?

Exactly. They went into depth about that in the documentary.

When all those oil storage tanks on the river are destroyed, then what? They are built on the most unstable soil possible according to the engineers. Liquefaction of the soil under them is a certainty, and the oil company isn't interested in addressing the problem.

They said some places may never come back. Some may take years to become livable again. We're used to seeing disaster zones become somewhat livable in a matter of months, but they don't see that scenario in this case. It's not just one city to repair - it's the whole coast from Vancouver, Canada to Northern California.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by Shooting Stars

.........You think Oregon is doing well in addressing the Cascadia situation, but the documentary clearly shows Oregon is far behind Washington and California in addressing it.

To keep your family safe, move to California. Dont move to Oregon ! Stay away! Danger! Danger ! Danger!

[Larry Caldwell]

Originally Posted by Shooting Stars

I don't live there, Sport.

And the danger zone from coastal Canada to coastal Northern California, has to be the largest danger zone for a single catastrophic event in the country. The death toll estimates also are higher than any other single event.

I just thought it was a good documentary and would be of interest to people in Oregon. I was wrong. You can put your head back in the sand now.

Not only do you not live here, you don't know much about living in an earthquake zone. The populated areas are roughly 80 miles from the fault. There will be a lot of shaking, but the difference between a magnitude 7 and a magnitude 9 is how long the quake lasts. The shaking is no more violent. The amount of damage in Portland will generally depend on the time of year. If it hits in the winter it will be ugly, because the Portland West Hills are covered with 30' of loess and slides are a problem even without an earthquake. A January quake like the last one would kill thousands of people, and there's no way to prevent that other than moving the city. That's not going to happen.

The coast is also a problem because of the tsunami. Locals would be faced with moving thousands of people to high ground in 20 minutes. It can't be done. The only way to change that is to move the city. That's not going to happen either.

As in all earthquakes, the real danger is fire. With the water mains broken, controlling house fires is very difficult, and with no electricity people will be using fire for light and cooking.

Bridges are only a concern for the motorists. The rivers haven't moved, and they will support plenty of shipping. There is all sorts of flutter about the coast being isolated, but you can walk from the coast to the valley in only 2 or 3 days. I've done it. You don't even have to cross streams, because the ones on the west side run into the ocean and the ones on the east side run into the Willamette. As for shipping, they have docks and bays too, and you can pack many tons into the hold of a trawler.

Another point is that, as Cascadia quakes go, one happening now would be relatively minor. It's only been a little over 300 years since the last one, which is the short end of the historic interval. The last one happened after 780 years, and it was a whopper that sent a tsunami all the way to Japan. Comparing the next one to the last one is hyperbole. Stress takes time to build.

Yes, people would freak out. Yes, their routines would be disrupted for months. Yes, there would be severe casualties in limited areas. If you insist on view property, be the house on top of the hill, not the one halfway down. Build your coastal house on a basalt cliff overlooking the ocean, not on the beach. Store drinking water, which is what everyone in a quake zone does.

[Thom52]

Originally Posted by Shooting Stars

I don't live there, Sport.

And the danger zone from coastal Canada to coastal Northern California, has to be the largest danger zone for a single catastrophic event in the country. .

meh, Yellowstone blowing up its volcano will make the Cascadia one look like child's play of disasters.

[PNW-type-gal]

Originally Posted by Thom52

meh, Yellowstone blowing up its volcano will make the Cascadia one look like child's play of disasters.

Except that the Yellowstone caldera eruption is a distant possibility with no timeline and the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake is a likelihood on a short (in geologic terms) timeline.

I'm not saying "flee!" but I am saying "be prepared." Look around, think about what the impacts in your area will be. Go up on your local county disaster management website or the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries webpage and look at their hazards pages. Think about how it affects you and your family and what kind of emergency stores you should have (true ANYWHERE in earthquake country).

[Larry Caldwell]

There are simple things people can do to prepare for disasters, but most won't bother.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by Larry Caldwell

There are simple things people can do to prepare for disasters, but most won't bother.

I have been through eight natural disasters, actually more like natural events. I never did anything to prepare for them, except being aware, and I'm just fine. I think I can make it through a few more of them, without preparing.

I have never lived in a state that had so few natural disasters, and yet people prepare so much for them, as Oregonians do.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by Cloudy Dayz

I have been through eight natural disasters, actually more like natural events. I never did anything to prepare for them, except being aware, and I'm just fine. I think I can make it through a few more of them, without preparing.

I have never lived in a state that had so few natural disasters, and yet people prepare so much for them, as Oregonians do.

I was living in Juneau AK during Y2K and there were a bunch of people up there who went crazy with all the prep. I remember Thanksgiving dinner at a friends house in 1999 who invited the neighbor over for dinner. This neighbor had spent tens of thousands of dollars building a bunker and armoring himself for the zombie apocalypse that was 1 month away. I vividly remember thinking "Dude... this is Juneau. If there's a lost kind in the woods everyone stops what they are doing and helps out. Everyone helps each other around here. These are the people who are suddenly going to be assaulting your "compound" in one month to get at your stock of MREs?" But people were going crazy buying up all the "prepper" gear and I remember local stores all had signs up saying "no returns on any Y2K related emergency purchases" as they didn't want to get stuck with a bunch of people returning unused generators and such on January 2, 2000.

That said, there are plenty of easy things to do to prepare. I keep a couple extra propane cylinders around so I could could for 6 weeks on my BBQ grill if power and gas are out. I have a backpacking water filter so I can pull water out of the stream behind the house if necessary. I have at least a month's worth of staples and canned goods in the house. Not so much for prepping but just because I buy in bulk. And I have a ton of camping and backpacking equipment available if the house is uninhabitable. When we lived in Texas, everyone bought emergency backup generators for hurricane preparedness but I don't really see the point of that up here as we don't get the swelteringly hot summer weather and one can get by fairly easily without electricity for a reasonable period of time. We are mostly vegetarian so I don't have a big freezer full of meat anymore that can go bad.

[Willamette City]

We live in Oakridge, Oregon below Hills Creek Dam. If a quake takes out Hills Creek dam, most of Oakridge is toast. If I was really concerned about it, I would get the hell out of Oakridge. I'm not that worried about it.

[Cloudy Dayz]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

I was living in Juneau AK during Y2K and there were a bunch of people up there who went crazy with all the prep. I remember Thanksgiving dinner at a friends house in 1999 who invited the neighbor over for dinner. This neighbor had spent tens of thousands of dollars building a bunker and armoring himself for the zombie apocalypse that was 1 month away. I vividly remember thinking "Dude... this is Juneau. If there's a lost kind in the woods everyone stops what they are doing and helps out. Everyone helps each other around here. These are the people who are suddenly going to be assaulting your "compound" in one month to get at your stock of MREs?" But people were going crazy buying up all the "prepper" gear and I remember local stores all had signs up saying "no returns on any Y2K related emergency purchases" as they didn't want to get stuck with a bunch of people returning unused generators and such on January 2, 2000.

That said, there are plenty of easy things to do to prepare. I keep a couple extra propane cylinders around so I could could for 6 weeks on my BBQ grill if power and gas are out. I have a backpacking water filter so I can pull water out of the stream behind the house if necessary. I have at least a month's worth of staples and canned goods in the house. Not so much for prepping but just because I buy in bulk. And I have a ton of camping and backpacking equipment available if the house is uninhabitable. When we lived in Texas, everyone bought emergency backup generators for hurricane preparedness but I don't really see the point of that up here as we don't get the swelteringly hot summer weather and one can get by fairly easily without electricity for a reasonable period of time. We are mostly vegetarian so I don't have a big freezer full of meat anymore that can go bad.

LOL, I was in California during Y2K and nobody even cared. Of course now the apartment complex I live in has 'What To Do In The Event of an Earthquake' posters all over the place. I never saw anything like that in California, and there are earthquakes in California all the time. Here they happen once every 300 years, supposedly.